


Make Me Skin & Bones (Where The Hell Have You Been)

by Kandakicksass



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (It's practically canon anyway), After Effects of the Nemeton, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Catatonia, Cora isn't a total bitch, DEAR LORD THE ANGST, Darkness, Depression, Derek Has Feelings, Derek is the answer to everybody's problems, Eating Disorders, Erica Feels, Erica and Boyd are sore subjects, Graphic descriptions of anorexia, Hurt!Stiles, Hurt/Comfort, Intervention, Isaac can be an asshole but we all know he's a puppy, Laura is a Good Alpha, Liberal Use of OCs (sort of), Lydia is awesome and not as stupid as the rest of them, M/M, Magic!Stiles, Multi, Panic Attacks, Pining, Post-3A, Protective Derek, Quite a bit of fluff considering, Recovery, Reiterate: slow burn slow everything, STILES HAS A LOT OF ISSUES OKAY, Schizophrenia, Season 3B AU, Self-Harm, She's also emotionally stunted, Sheriff Stilinski is a Good Dad, Slight self-loathing, Slow Burn, Stiles's Mom is also a sore subject, The Sheriff's name is John and it stays, Unrequited Love, emotional breakdowns, nobody is okay, not a quick fix-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-15
Updated: 2015-05-28
Packaged: 2017-12-29 11:28:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 44
Words: 54,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1004892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kandakicksass/pseuds/Kandakicksass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles takes the darkness from the Nemeton a lot harder than Scott and Allison do. Derek comes back after he goes catatonic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit of an experiment, with small chapters, and more frequent updates. It's still going to be a slow burn. I just wanted that disclaimer that Derek won't even be showing up for a while out of the way. I basically wanted Sterek (eventually) and a shit ton of hurt!Stiles.  
> (I am so self-indulgent...)  
> Tags will be added as necessary, and the rating may go up.

He’s waiting for his coffee when he sees her for the first time. She’s sitting in a corner booth, watching him with a small smile as she nurses a cup of tea. Her eyes sparkle and her limbs are thin. She’s like nothing he’s ever seen before, and she is beautiful.

The girl behind the counter hands him his coffee (small, non-fat, no whip) and he vaguely recognizes her from school. She smiles at him and normally he would be all over that. Today he’s not. Today he hardly cares.

He walks over to the girl in the corner hesitatingly. Her smile widens, urging him to come closer. The closer he gets, the more brittle she looks. Like a little china doll, all breakable parts and pale skin.

“I’m Stiles,” he tells her after he seats himself. She giggles. She has dimples, and he might have swooned if he wasn’t in the middle of unrequited love already and had more energy. He really doesn’t have the energy, even for the unrequited love bit. He’s so very tired, but she doesn’t need to know that. “Do I know you?”

“Not as such,” she says. Her voice is light and airy, like a fairy. He’s met one, before. She kind of reminds him of the pretty boy he’d met in the woods before Scott had pulled him away and threatened the boy with his teeth in a way that was way too familiar for Stiles' comfort. “I’m Ana.” It sounds familiar, like something he’d looked at recently but couldn’t say where.

“I haven’t seen you around before.” He sounds a little dumbfounded. The girl behind the counter is watching him, concern playing over her features. He doesn’t care enough to wonder why. “I think I’d remember if I had.”

“I’m new,” she says lightly. She sets her tea on the table and reaches out, lacing their fingers together. “And you’re so messed up, Stiles. You need someone, don’t you?”

“Are you a fairy?” he asks, feeling a little confused but not able to muster up the clarity of thought that would lead to worry.

She laughs. He can’t look away from their fingers. His are almost as thin as hers and he feels as brittle as she looks. “Don’t you know?”

“I don’t know anything,” he tells her, and she smiles a bit sadly. He really likes the way she looks. Her hair is white-blonde and her eyes are hazel, smudged around the edges with purple rings and messy eyeliner. (He loves hazel eyes. He thinks she knows why and he’s not sure how. She seems to know a lot of things.) She looks like a model in a magazine he’d browsed once at Deaton’s. “Who are you?” She feels like she’s a part of him. “Does this have to do with werewolves?”

“No werewolves,” she hums, and strokes a vein on the back of his hands with her thumb. “Just you. I just want to help you.”

“No one ever wants to help me,” he says, matter-of-fact. It’s not whiny, or even a complaint. It’s a statement of fact. He’s cried over it enough. He’s come up with his own methods of coping. “Why do you?”

“Don’t push it, Stiles,” she says, and stares him down. “Just accept. Now drink your coffee.” He does as he’s told, and his stomach growls. She smiles at him, toothy and perfect. “Aren’t you going to eat?” Ana’s smile is coy. She knows exactly what she’s doing. She’s trying to make a point.

“No.” He feels compelled to continue. “I’m not hungry.”

“That’s okay,” she consoles when his shoulders droop. He lets himself feel bad about it, about what he’s doing to himself, for only a moment, but she squeezes his hand to bring him out of it. “Stiles. Come on now. No use crying over spilled milk.”

His entire _body_ is spilled milk. He pulls his flannel shirt tighter around his torso. It’s too big now, and he’s not sure if it’s comforting or unsettling.

“You’re so lovely,” she whispers, leaning forward. Her gaze is intense. “So lovely, Stiles.” He doesn’t believe her and tells her so. She giggles again. “Oh, honey, you have no idea. Just you wait till you get out of this town. People will line up down the block for you. That werewolf you pine over won’t know what hit him.”

"How did you know?" he asks weakly. He tries to feel surprised that she knew about Derek, but at this point, he’s starting to think she knows more about him that he does.

"Sweetie-" In her lacy dress, he wonders who should be calling who sweetie, but doesn't say anything. "-you really need to stop questioning it. You don't always have to know everything."

"I feel like I do," he tells her miserably. "Everyone -"

"Screw everyone, lovely," she urges. "You need to start doing things for you."

He feels like he's inside a dream right now. How did he get there? When did she show up? He could have sworn she wasn't there when he walked in.

"Stiles," she sighs and opens her mouth to say something else.

"What are you doing?"

Stiles jumps, looking over his shoulder. Scott is standing there looking torn. "I..."

"Were you talking to yourself?"

Eyes widening, mind uncomprehending, he turns back to Ana. The seat is empty. Her cup of tea is gone. "No," he answers slowly. "No, someone was here."

Scott immediately starts. "Are you kidding me? No, we do not need more supernatural crap around here."

"Don't I know it," Stiles mutters as Scott walks off toward the counter.

He's surprised when Scott gets his coffee and sits in front of him. This might be the most Stiles has seen of his friend in a week.

"So is this something we need to get worried about?" he asks, sipping at his venti mocha. Stiles pauses.

"No. No, I don't think so," he says finally. "She didn't seem awful, but hey, what do I know." He stops. "I like her, I think." He doesn't say how she sort of terrifies him. He doesn't say a word. Scott grins, relieved, and they stay for another fifteen minutes. When they finish their coffee, they get up to leave.

Stiles doesn't mention how Ana stood by the door, passed by an oblivious Scott, and smiled at him with sad eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

“Call if you need anything.”

Stiles glances over his shoulder at the door where his father stands. He looks hesitant to leave and Stiles wonders how bad he looks that he warrants checking up on.

“Yeah, of course,” he agrees easily.

“Scott and Isaac coming over later?”

Stiles can understand why he’d ask – both his friends had spent a lot of time at his house after the alpha pack, but that had tapered off. He’s not surprised. “Probably not. I might invite Danny over later.” A lie. Not that Danny wouldn’t come (he’s such a good guy. Too good. Stiles can’t understand how Danny puts up with him), but Stiles doesn’t want to bother him. Besides, Danny would probably bring food and expect Stiles to eat it. He’s just not hungry.

“All right,” his dad sighs. “Son, are you feeling okay? You look tired.”

“I am,” he answers with a wry smile. Deaton has taken the time to explain about the ice bath incident to his father, but Stiles doesn’t like to talk about it. His father worries mostly silently and tries to accept Stiles’s half-hearted assurances. He doesn’t want his dad to know how bad it really is. “I’m good, Dad, really. Just tired. Go to work, okay?”

“Okay.” A pause. “I love you, kid.”

“You too, Dad.”

He listens to the sound of his father’s footsteps as they fade down the hall.

“It’s nice that he cares.”

He wants to be startled. He’s not. He’s either too used to being snuck up on or too tired. Ana is sitting on his window sill looking even more fey-like than ever and ten times more familiar. There are flowers in her hair and a daisy chain around her ankle. Her lips are painted red.

“Yeah,” he says after a long silence. “It is. It helps that he knows, too. About the werewolf thing.” She nods, and he sighs.

“You’re so good,” she tells him softly, coming forward to wrap her arms around his neck and rest her head atop his. Her hair is a curtain, shielding his face from view. She smells like lilacs. “So good. Your father is so lucky to have you.”

“I don’t want to worry him.”

She leads him to the bed without a word and covers him up. It’s only four or so, but he’s so tired. She lays down next to him, on top of the covers, carefully entwining him in her arms. He curls up, ignoring the hollow ache in his empty stomach. “You’re doing so well,” she whispers. “Look at how much happier he is, already.” Her voice becomes even softer, a breath in his ear. "Look at how beautiful you are."

“It hurts,” he whispers back, pained. He clutches at his stomach, making it clear what's aching him. He doesn’t know why he’s confiding in her. He doesn’t know her. (Yes, he does. He just can’t say how.) She nods against his neck and points to the glass of water still sitting half-full on his nightstand. He reaches out and pulls it closer. He props himself up just enough to drink it, then lays himself back down.

He falls asleep a short while later to the sound of Ana’s humming and dreams of the low hum of magic he’s too familiar with.

He opens his dream-eyes, looking around without much enthusiasm. He’s resting against the stump, sitting in his white room. The Nemeton is filtering magic through his body, and it feels both perfect and too much. It’s a lot like feeling full, and he’s surprised to find that he hates it. The power, though – he feels awake for the first time in weeks, and he’s not even actually awake.

Erica is sitting across from him, perched on the stump.

“Oh, Batman,” she murmurs, and he flinches. “What have you done to yourself?”

He reaches out slowly, taking her warm hand into his cold one. “I miss you so much.” His voice cracks and she doesn’t say anything about the non sequitur. “God, Erica. Everything is so awful.”

“Is it really?” she asks. Not patronizing – just curious. Her thumb is stroking the back of his hand like Ana’s had the day before. “I thought things were getting better. Less crazy supernatural activity, more calm.”

“Then why do I feel worse every damn day, huh?” There’s no heat in his voice and Erica’s lips press tighter together.

“You can’t always listen to what your head tells you, babe,” she says after a long silence. “It’s your head telling you there’s something wrong.” A long-fingered hand reaches out, pressing against his chest, just over his heart. “This darkness will try to twist every thought. You have to fight it.” She slides over, using the hand she’d had on his chest to urge his head into her lap. He lets her and she starts running those fingers through his hair.

“Is it better, where you are?”

Her hand freezes. “Are you asking for my sake, or yours?”

He doesn’t want to lie. Not to Erica, even if she’s a figment of his imagination. “You, mostly. I don’t plan to off myself or anything, but… yeah, some reassurance would be nice.” He blinks up at her. “But mostly I really just want to know that you’re okay.”

“Then yes. It is better.” She leans down and presses a kiss to his forehead. Her lips tremble against his skin. “Vern is here, too. Where I am.”

“Boyd? Is he okay, too?”

“Yeah. He’s okay, too.” Her tone is fond and he smiles weakly. He feels like such an idiot for being on the verge of tears.

“You love him.” Stiles is so happy for her. He doesn’t know what it says about him that he’s dreaming up happy endings for Erica and Boyd instead of himself. Is it the guilt? He finds that he doesn’t actually want to know.

“Yeah.” She looks like she’s about to cry, but giggles instead. “Shit. There’s lipstick on your forehead.”

He laughs with her. “I’m so happy for you,” he tells her honestly when their laughter dies down. His smile feels genuine for the first time in a while.

He doesn’t keep track of how long he spends in the dream with her, but just before he wakes up she seems to know and hugs him.

“Just try, okay? For me.” She shakes his shoulder lightly. “Try to be okay, too.”

“Okay,” he agrees, and hugs her tighter. “Love you, Catwoman.” He can’t say where it comes from. Their contact was so limited when she was alive, but he still loves her _so much_.

“You too, Batman.” Her grin is infectious. “And do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

“Tell Isaac I love him? And that I’m doing good.”

“Yeah.” It’s just a dream, but he agrees anyway. He wakes up crying into his pillow. Ana is nowhere to be found.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is steadily getting worse as I write it. I hate myself.  
> (And by worse I mean poor Stiles why do I want him in so much pain?)

Stiles spends a month trying to balance Ana, the Nemeton, and the rest of the world. He dreams of the white room nearly every night since his first dream of Erica. She appears every night without fail and as of late, Boyd has joined her. He didn’t seem too happy about it at first, but as weeks went by, he warmed up to Stiles considerably. He aches, knowing that they hadn’t been close when he was alive. Most days, he would rather be asleep with his dead friends than awake with his living friends. It makes him feel guiltier than usual.

He sees Ana more than he tells Scott about. (Honestly, though, he’s still not sure about Scott being any sort of authority figure.) He doesn't say anything about Ana to Deaton, either; he only asks him what it means that he's dreaming about the Nemeton. The vet doesn't have much information and nothing he didn't already know. In fact, the only thing Deaton seems wary of is the sudden surge of magic that Stiles is starting to really resent. His “spark” is becoming a bonfire, one that worries the vet. He feels bad about it, but in spite of Deaton’s constant questions, he’s entirely unwilling to talk about his dreams past that fact that the Nemeton is in them. He doesn’t really want to share them with anyone. The only person with any sort of idea is Isaac, and that’s only because of his message from Erica.

(Isaac had looked at him for nearly a minute straight, unwaveringly, then turned on his heel and left the room. He didn’t say anything back, but before he’d left the school parking lot that afternoon, Stiles had been accosted in a short hug. Neither of them talk about it.)

“Sti-les.”

He’s just walked into the public library, but he can’t remember why. He looks around quickly – the librarians don’t look from their computers, and the only other two in the building – a mother and her son, who gives Stiles a dimpled smile – doesn’t seem to hear her, either. He knows that none of the four others won’t care enough to watch him talk to “thin air.” (Damn fairies.)

Startlingly, Ana isn’t alone. It really shouldn’t be that shocking – he’s been wondering for months why she was alone, after all. The fey rarely travel solo, so he should really have been expecting this.

“Who is this?” he asks when he gets close enough to say it quietly.

Ana doesn’t bother to do the same. “Another friend.”

For a moment, Stiles isn’t convinced about that. Her “friend” is tall (a good foot taller than Stiles, who has always been a decent height) with dark skin and darker eyes. He feels as familiar as Ana, but is larger, both in height and general size. He’s muscular and intimidating, but under Stiles’s scrutiny, he smiles. It’s small and warm and makes Stiles’s chest ache.

He can’t remember the last time anyone looked so pleased to see him. Not outside of Dream-Erica.  “I’m Stiles,” he says after a long pause, and the guy’s smile widens. He has sharp-looking canines, but somehow, the expression on his face isn’t threatening in the least.

“Dan,” he says. His voice is surprisingly light, for a man of his size. “Though you didn’t need to introduce yourself.” Stiles supposes he didn’t. Dan doesn’t look like fey the way Ana does, but he tells himself he’s stereotyping and doesn’t think about it.

“You look exhausted,” Ana observes after a long moment of silence. Dan nods.

“Why are you out? You don’t just look exhausted; you look dead on your feet.” He sounds unimpressed, but his eyes are concerned.

“I’m supposed to meet Lydia here in ten,” he tells them, eyes widening as he remembers. He doesn’t know how he’d forgotten. He’d seen Ana and it had completely slipped his mind. Then again, things like this have been happening much more than they should be as of late. It’s harder than usual to focus, and that’s coming from someone who can’t sit still for a second if he hasn’t taken his Adderall.

“We’ll go then,” Dan says, and Ana nods. He puts a hand on her shoulder. “It’s nice to finally say hello, Stiles. You’ll see us around.”

“I’m sure I will,” he says to himself, bemused, as he watches them leave. Lydia walks in as they approach the door and Dan catches it, holding it open for Ana and smiling over his shoulder at Stiles before he walks after her. When they disappear from view, he turns his gaze to Lydia, who’s watching him with a raised eyebrow. She has a mark on her neck that’s likely from Aiden, he notices. It’s nice to not feel the burning jealousy anymore. (The reason for it is less nice. He wishes his feelings weren’t always for people who will never return them.)

“I thought you’d already be on your computer. Have you just been standing there?” It takes a moment to register that she spoke, but he nods slowly.

“Sorry,” he says when her eyes narrow in suspicion. She looks at him like that a lot lately. “Do you want to get started?”

She nods, moving toward a desk without consulting him. Uncaring, he follows, pulling his laptop out of his backpack. “Are you okay?” she asks at last, after staring at him until he squirms uncomfortably.

“Yeah,” he says. His hands are shaking suddenly. Or maybe they have been the whole time and he just didn’t notice until someone else’s attention was drawn to it. “Why?”

“You’ve been acting weird.” She pauses, then gives him a look. “Well, weirder than normal.”

He shrugs. He doesn’t know what to say. Any lie he gives Lydia will see through, so it’s better by a long shot to avoid the question until she stops asking it. He opens his mouth to distract her, to say _anything_ to get those piercing eyes off of him, when his stomach makes a sound.

Automatically, her eyes snap down to his torso. “Okay, now I know something is up. How are you so hungry that your stomach sounds like a feral werewolf?” He goes bright red, blushing even more when his stomach makes the sound again.

“I’ve been busy,” he tells her after a deep breath and a steadily darkening of Lydia’s expression. “And I felt sick earlier, so I didn’t eat much for lunch. Probably getting a cold or something.” He shrugs as nonchalantly as he can.

“If you’re sick, they why the hell are you around me?” she asks with a groan, sounding disgusted, but he can see it in her eyes. She’s not falling for it so easily. “You need to be at home instead of contaminating the rest of the world. And Jesus, eat some soup or something, okay?”

“Yeah,” he breathes. He can’t believe he’s getting away with it. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Sorry.”

Her tone is a little gentler when she sighs and speaks again. “You should be. We can work on this project later,” she announces, standing and beginning to re-pack her things. “Because I do _not_ want to get sick. That’s really unattractive.” He could roll his eyes at her, and nearly does, but before she flounces off, she touches him on the shoulder. It’s feather light, like he might break if she uses too much force. He looks down at the hand, then up at her. “If something’s up, you can tell me. Okay?”

“Of course, Lyds,” he says, and feels this small part of himself warm up at the thought of being her friend. A real friend, finally, after all those years of pining. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, whatever,” she sniffs. “Thank _you_ for wasting my gas. I’ll see you at school tomorrow, Stiles.”

He laughs as she leaves and doesn’t feel bad about it. He can hear her laughing, too.  


	4. Chapter 4

He's laying back against the stump again, head cushioned between Erica's thighs. Her hands are running through his hair and it feels nice. He has a smile on his face miles wide and his eyes are closed. His hum is blissful and his breath even and relaxed. This is the best he's felt in ages.

"What's it like over there?" he asks without opening his eyes. His limbs feel like jelly. He doesn't ever want to move. "Where you are, I mean." He asks partly out of curiosity and partly because he's trying to imagine anything feeling as good as this. "Are there strip clubs?" He doesn't know what inspires him to say it. It's the most Stiles-esque statement he's made in months.

"You're an idiot," Boyd says bluntly from a few feet away, sprawled across the prisitne white floor. "' _Are there strip clubs?_ '" His tone is mocking, but underneath is a current of amusement. Stiles counts it as a win.

"No," Erica answers instead. "There aren't any strip clubs." There's a long pause, silent except the pulse of the Nemeton's magic. It's almost comforting now. He feels so breakable and so strong, all at once. It's unnerving. It's exhilerating. "It's a little hard to describe, the After. Hard to navigate. It's a lot of wandering, but you always end up where you want to go. There are trees everywhere, and pastures filled with flowers." There's a smile in her voice.

"We can run there," Boyd murmurs, his first real contribution to any semi-serious conversation. "As wolves. On Earth - or whatever you want to call it, where all you living people are - we're only half wolf. In the After, we're both, completely. Totally human and totally wolf."

"I imagine that's what Erica meant by 'hard to describe,'" Stiles gathers. He likes the description. It sounds peaceful.

"It is," Erica tells him. "It's peaceful by itself, but it also - I feel our pack bond closer there. Closer to you, closer to Boyd. I can feel all of you so much stronger than I could before."

He tenses.

"Where is Derek, by the way?"

He opens his eyes because he doesn't feel relaxed and weightless anymore. He doesn't see the point. "I don't know." Lie. And because he can't lie to them, because he won't, he opens his mouth and corrects himself, "Arizona, somewhere, according to the GPS on his phone." Which he doesn't feel bad for tracking because Derek has a tendency of getting himself into messy situations. (He feels bad. He just can't stop.)

"Did he leave with Cora?" Boyd asks.

"I only met her once," Erica adds glumly, and guilt and self-loathing and _regret_ rises up like acid in his throat despite none of this being his fault.

"Yeah, he did. And she's okay, I guess. You're not missing out on much," Stiles says, then laughs a little bitterly because Cora would shank him for even saying that. "She's a piece of work," he amends. "Definitely a Hale. Got Derek's scowl and Derek's cheekbones. And Derek's talent of avoiding an issue with gruling workouts and fangs."

"You don't like her?" Erica asks.

"It's not that I don't like her," he explains, picking at the hem of the shirt he went to bed in. (He says went to bed. He told his father he was taking a nap. It was 4:30 when he laid down. He does that a lot as of late.) "I just never got to know her. When she showed up we already had a fuckin' Darach and an alpha pack to deal with."

Erica doesn't flinch. Neither does Boyd. He wishes he could just _get over things_ they way they seem to have. But then, they're dead, and he's not. They have it easy.

"Why did Derek leave?"

This question is also from Boyd. Stiles ignores the painful thump of his heart. "I don't know." He swallows. "To clear his head, maybe. To bond with Cora." The _to get the hell out of this town_ remains unspoken, but the thought hangs heavy between them. "It's just hard, I guess. He keeps losing people in Beacon Hills."

"It's a beacon, all right," Erica snickers, and they all get a bittersweet laugh out of it. "It's okay to wake up, Stiles," she tells him when she notices that he's fighting the pull in his chest. "You don't have to stay here with us all the time."

"But I want to," he says quietly as his limbs feel more solid. He's already mostly awake and gives up. "Love you."

"You, too," she answers. Boyd says goodbye, but he misses the last half of it, opening his physical eyes to the darkness of his bedroom.  
His alarm is going off, and he kind of wants to punch it. He doesn't think he would do much damage. He doesn't have the strength anymore. He reaches out to turn it off, and is almost startled by the visible bones in his hands and wrist when they emerge from his covers.

He sighs and forces himself upright, forces himself out of bed and into clothes.

"No breakfast?" his father asks when he passes him on his way out the door.

"I'm going to grab something from the coffeeshop by the school," he lies and gives his father a weak smile as he opens and closes the door behind him.

“Don’t feel bad,” Ana says as he slides into his front seat. She’s waiting for him as always. Dan is sprawled in the back, looking like he could care less, but his eyes watch Stiles’s every move. “You don’t really need breakfast, anyway.” He agrees with her, starting up the engine.

The drive to school is uneventful. (Most of his life is, when he’s not consulting for a werewolf pack, or sitting in a huge white room with dead people.)

“Dude, did you even sleep last night?” Scott asks him, looking appalled as he takes in Stiles’s bone-weary appearance.

“Yeah,” Stiles tells him. “I think I’m getting sick, though.” And luckily, it’s not a lie. There’s nothing for Scott to pick up on. (He wouldn’t. Scott’s bad at that for an alpha, bad at a lot of things. He has a lot of work to do with no one to teach him. Stiles misses Derek like a limb.)

“You don’t smell sick.”

He doesn’t know when Ethan showed up, but he’s there, sniffing at Stiles with a semi-concerned expression. Danny is behind him, looking vaguely worried himself.

He doesn’t like the look in Danny’s eyes, like he knows that whatever is wrong is far worse than what meets the eye. Danny is too perceptive. Danny is too sensitive to these things.

“I’ll be fine,” he says dismissively and convinces himself that he means it.

Ethan raises his eyebrows, but Danny puts a hand on his shoulder and shakes his head. It’s a tiny, knowing gesture.

Stiles feels like he’s going to have a panic attack.

“You know what,” he says quickly, his voice higher than usual. “I’m really not feeling well. I shouldn’t have come today – I’m going home. Catch my work for me, eh, Scotty?” The shaky giggles he lets out don’t help his case. Danny looks at him with comprehension, with pity, with _no no no no no._

He literally runs out of the school and locks himself in the shitty Honda his father managed to find him after he totaled the Jeep. ( _It was his mother’s car and he hates himself for totaling it every damn day._ ) He drives with shaky hands and short breath, parks somewhere up the drive to the Hale house.

He manages to drive home again, nearly seven hours later, after a nap in the back seat and a lot of time imagining what the house might have looked like pre-fire.

He doesn’t go to school for a week – texts Scott, tells him he’s got the flu or something, that he wants to be alone. He lives off of peaches and a small salad, somewhere. He drinks a lot of water, listens to a lot of music.

He sleeps even more.

 


	5. Chapter 5

Stiles returns to school and returns to sleeping during the night. He forces himself to after an all-night lecture from Erica about unhealthy sleeping habits and avoiding his friends. Of course, just because he's listened to her once, she's convinced that he'll listen to her on other matters.

"You need to eat more, Stiles." She has an apricot in her hands, rolling it from one palm to the other. It's food from the After, and Stiles would ask for it just to set her at ease if he weren't so weary of eating fruit from the land of the dead.

"I eat plenty, Erica," he tells her, and it's true. He eats enough to fill him up, and stops. If he's lost a little weight, so what? He's always been skinny.

"Not enough," she insists. "I'm not stupid. Nor am I oblivious. I see you and I see myself freshman year, and that _terrifies_ me."

He turns around to look at her so fast he gets whiplash. " _What_?"

Her gaze is challenging. She takes a bite of the apricot. "Did you think I never just stopped eating because I was so fat?" She snorts. "You know what I looked like before Derek bit me. Epilepsy, and my meds - I was a walking disaster. I hated myself, Stiles."

“Shut up,” he tells her. He’s downright terrified now. He doesn’t want to hear this.

“I looked a lot like you do now, honey. I weighed 115 pounds for about three months and I looked like a skeleton.” Her gaze is ripping a hole right through him. "Then my mom and dad noticed. My mom forced me to start eating a little at a time. I had doctors freaking out over my weight constantly. And of course, the minute I started eating regularly I just gained all that weight right back. So trust me, Stiles. I know about this sort of thing." It's not a sob story. It's told as fact, it's told to make him listen. (He's listening.) "You never get over things like this, Stiles. Even as a werewolf, I was so careful about what I ate, even if I had to eat a lot of it. Werewolf metabolism and all that. So please, just talk to me. Before this gets worse."

"Erica," he says, his voice quiet.

"How much do you weigh, Stiles?”

“I don’t –“

“ _How much do you weigh, Stiles?_ ”

“I _don’t know_ , Erica!” he tells her. It’s loud, ringing off the walls. “I haven’t been weighed since the beginning of the year, during my physical. That’s not what this is about. I don’t need to be thinner, I was a lanky, skinny little shit from the get-go.”

“Then what is it about, Stiles? Because you’re not healthy, and it’s freaking me out. I’m _dead_ , and I don’t need you joining me.” He doesn't like the reminder that he's treading a fine line.

Guilt claws its way up his throat. “It’s about control,” he chokes. “And because I’m just not hungry. I don’t want to eat, Erica. I don’t like eating. And besides, isn’t it a good thing that I’m being more conscious of what I eat? All those curly fries, all that pizza. It’s greasy and fatty and _disgusting._ ” (It's not disgusting. He just needs an excuse not to eat all that food. Needs a reason to take that control back.)

“There’s a difference between watching what you eat and not eating at all,” she murmurs gently. Stiles is glad that Boyd isn’t here for once. He doesn’t want him here for this. _He_ doesn’t want to be here for this. “Go face the world of the living, Stiles. And for the love of god, remember what I said, okay?”

He thanks god it’s a Saturday when he wakes up. He’s curled in a little ball under his covers and is plenty happy to stay there. Of course, his phone rings.

It’s a text message and he doesn’t even read who sent it before reading the message itself.

_Cora said I should probably check in. Yours is the only number I have, so sorry if I'm bothering you._

He suddenly feels so, so cold.

_Is everything okay back there?_

He just kind of sits there. Twenty minutes later, he gets a _Stiles?_

He manages to make his trembling fingers work properly. It takes him three different tries to sort out what he wants to say, and another two to type it out without misspelling every word. _Everything’s fine here. What about you guys?_

The reply takes less than a minute to come. _We’re good. Better than good, actually. I haven’t seen Cora this relaxed since before the fire._

 _I’m glad you guys are doing okay._ And because he’s weak, _Do you know when… if? ... you’re coming back?_

He waits for an answer with trembling limbs and a rabbit’s heartbeat. _I don’t really know. Cora wanted to see the Grand Canyon, then we were going to talk about whether we wanted to come back or not. Why? Is Scott doing okay?_

Stiles remembers a time when Derek would have said ‘fuck Scott’ and not given a damn. It seems like their vacation has done him some good.

_Scott’ll be fine. I was just wondering._

_All right then. I’ll check in again sometime soon probably. Let me know if something comes up._

_Okay. Have fun sourwolf._ He wants that illusion of normalcy and can't stop himself from saying it. 

_Quit calling me that. Bye, Stiles._

_Bye._

He throws the phone across the room and gets up to go to the bathroom. He steadfastly ignores the sound of his father moving about downstairs, ignores the weakness in his body. He doesn’t even care about getting clothes, just slips into the shower and cowers in the corner to wait for the water to warm up.

“Stiles?”

That’s Scott’s voice. He sits down on the floor of the shower and curls up again. “I’m in the shower, Scott,” he calls back. He doesn’t want Scott to see him like this. He doesn’t want anyone to see his body. “Do you think you could toss me some jeans and a shirt?”

“Yeah, man,” Scott replies, and a few minutes later, he hears his clothes tossed onto the counter. “You good?”

“Yeah,” he answers. “I’ll be out in a few.”

He stands on shaky legs and just stays there, under the stream of warm water, wishing he could just remain there forever.

“Since when does ‘a few’ mean twenty minutes?” Scott calls through the door, clearly making fun of him, and he manages a weak smile, just for himself.

“Give me a second to get dressed, Scott,” he says with an eye roll his friend can’t see as he shuts off the water. He dries himself and gets dressed. He wants a hoodie, feels naked with his arms exposed. He really didn’t think this one through. He covers his shoulders in a dry towel, hides his thinness underneath it. “Hey, man,” he greets his best friend, making a beeline for the flannel shirt lying across the back of his computer chair. Once that’s on (quickly, under the towel), he goes and grabs his hoodie from his closet and pulls that on as well.

“Lydia told me to drop by,” Scott explains when Stiles sits down and turns a questioning look on him. “I’ve been so busy trying to figure out this thing with Isaac and Allison that I haven’t been around much.” To his credit, he actually looks chagrined. “She looked worried about you.”

“I’m fine, Scott,” he lies, then realizes too late when Scott’s eyebrows raise to his hairline.

“You just lied to me,” he says and while he doesn’t look worried, per se, he doesn’t look happy.

Stiles sighs, trying not to let his racing thoughts show. “Are any of us really fine? We sort of died, dude.” _It wasn’t long enough._ “But I’ll be okay. Things are getting better.” He’s getting thinner. He's starting to feel more and more removed from the rest of the world, from reality. “I mean, come on. Can you say that you’re okay?”

Scott’s eyebrows furrow. “Um, yeah, actually.”

“What about the “darkness” that Deaton was talking about?” Stiles is very much unimpressed. “Because if I’m feeling it, you should definitely be feeling it.” He wouldn’t ever admit how much he feels the darkness.

“I feel it, I guess,” Scott shrugs. “But not in a super awful way. Why, do you?”

He doesn’t want to talk about it. “You know what? I don’t really want to talk about this anymore.” Scott looks wounded, but Stiles isn’t going to back down on this one. “By the way? Derek texted.”

He feels a little sore just saying his name.

“How is he?” Scott asks, looking excited. “Is he okay?” Since leaving, Scott had actually started looking at Derek like a brother, the way Derek had said he should all along.

“He’s good,” Stiles says quietly. He looks back toward his phone. “He’s good.” Suddenly, he isn’t much in the mood for company, but he swallows down the urge to make Scott leave. "Do you want to play some COD? I don't have anything else to do today."

Scott's grin is wide. "Yeah, man."

It's such a little thing, but Stiles feels like he's accomplished something.


	6. Chapter 6

The texts from Derek are difficult for him to handle. They come more and more frequently, sparking conversations lasting sometimes up to an hour. Every text message is saved to his phone and if they had spoken conversations, those would probably be recorded as well. As it is, Stiles doesn’t pick up the phone when Derek calls. He doesn’t want Derek to hear his voice; he would know something was wrong, and Stiles definitely doesn’t want that.

Stiles can’t remember how or when it started, this whole mess with Derek and his own overly zealous feelings. They weren’t friends, not like they are now (tentatively). Derek was snarky and distrusting and vicious – and yes, funny and protective and when they thought he’d been killed by the alpha pack? Scott may have mourned, but Stiles was the one in shock, unable to understand why it felt like there was a hole in his chest. Stiles was the one woken by nightmares the entire week afterwards.

(He would dream about Derek and Erica and Boyd and he would pull their bodies close and cry until they rotted in his arms. He never told his father just what had him screaming hysterically, shaking so hard he needed to be pinned down until he either passed out or calmed.)

He didn’t know Derek then and he’s only barely getting to now, but he _misses_ him. He wants to be pushed against walls and make stupid jokes about the Miguel thing. He wants to be aroused (what does that even feel like anymore?) and slightly scared and slightly _fond_. He wants to be there to try and comfort him when he gets that look on his face that means he’s remembering bad things. Without even really knowing him, Stiles managed to love Derek.

Stiles has a bad habit of doing things that hurt him. Loving Derek might be at the top of the list.

His stomach makes a sound – a gurgle, almost – to remind him he needs something to eat. He gets up from the floor where he was leaning against his bed as he re-read a saved conversation. He stands for a moment, debating the pros and cons, then directs his weary body downstairs.

He turns the TV on and cuts himself an apple into small pieces. He carefully sorts them into two piles and puts one into a plastic bag, leaving it on the table to be put away when he gets up again.

Predictably, he’s temped once he finishes the first half. It had taken him nearly half an hour just to eat what was set it front of him, but he _wants_. And what would it hurt? He's always being told that he needs to eat more. It's probably better for him to just finish the apple.

“Don’t, Stiles.”

Ana is seated on an armchair to the left of the couch. She looks nonchalant and for once as of late, she’s alone. Her eyes are intense.

“Don’t?” he repeats, then leans back against the couch. He feels… stumped. Flummoxed. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t touch the other half of that apple. Put it away for later.”

He just stares at her. She doesn’t say anything else, but her eyes soften. “But – _why_? It’s just an apple.” He feels almost full. If he just finishes the apple…

“Stiles,” she says. “No. You don’t really want it. You don’t _need_ it.”

He feels his resolve weaken, then crumble. “I –“ A shake of the head from Ana. Her white-blonde hair is like a halo around her head. She looks smaller than she did the day before. “I don’t need it,” he agrees, and gets up to put the apple away.

When he comes back, Dan has joined Ana, sprawling out on the couch with a thick leather book, and Stiles takes the other armchair. He wants to smile, but he feels heavy. He just wants to sleep for a very long time. The guilt is coming full-force ( _you're so weak, why does Ana have to be the one to stop you?_ ), and he squirms under the side-eye Dan is giving him. Every time Stiles looks up to see him, he glances back to his book, but Stiles knows where his eyes are when he's not looking.

There’s somewhere else in the room.

He stares at her in confusion. She’s less familiar than the others but still _close_. She, too, is so beautiful. (They are so perfect, and he is so awful.) Her hair is dark but her eyes are light, blue-green with a hint of brown around the pupil. She looks confident and self-assure. (He feels like he’s seen her before.)

“Stiles,” Ana says, nodding toward the new one. “This is Cat. She wanted to say hello.”

“Hello,” Cat says, eyes sparkling with mischief. She reminds him of someone. He can’t put his finger on it. She appears to be in a better mood than he is, but it's manic. He can see it in her eyes, in the way she's fidgeting with the sleeves of her shirt as they cover her hands.

“Hi,” he agrees. He should get up, offer her a drink. He doesn’t want to and he doesn’t think she would drink it anyway. Neither of the other two accept his offers of food or drink. “I’m Stiles, but I guess you already know that.” He doesn’t manage to smile, but he hopes that his expression is friendly. It's silent for a moment - Cat silently appraising him, Ana smiling in satisfaction (in pride). He feels like a lab rat.

His phone rings upstairs and his eyes go involuntarily to the stairs. Everyone else’s follow.

It’s Dan’s voice that speaks up. “It’s going to be just as bad if you put it off. You might as well go answer it. Derek hates it when you take hours to answer.”

Stiles doesn’t ask how he knows that, but goes up and gets his phone regardless. His hands tremble as he reaches for it because the phone is still ringing. He can't talk to Derek - he just  _can't_. But it's not Derek.

“Lydia?” he asks into the receiver. He’s confused. She rarely calls him and they already finished their project. (Stiles’s week-long “flu” meant that Lydia did most of the work. He feels bad.) He can't remember any reason for her to call.

“I’m coming over,” she informs him breezily. “I finished the extra research on fairies that you wanted and thought you might like a warning.” The memory comes back to him. Yes, he had asked Lydia to do some research for him, see if she could find something in one of her latin texts. 

“Okay,” he says slowly. “How far away are you?”

“Honey, I’m on your porch. I just wanted to make sure I didn’t give you a heart attack by ringing when you didn’t expect it.” She laughs and he hears the doorbell in the background.

“Give me a second to get downstairs,” he sighs and hangs up the phone. When he goes back down and passes through the living room, Ana and Dan are watching him with raised eyebrows. Cat looks curious. “Hey, firecracker,” he greets Lydia as he opens the door. She grins at him. She looks a little wild, like a large cat with sharp teeth.

“Hey, loser. Sitting alone all day?”

Lydia knows about the fairies so he doesn’t see the point in lying. “Nah. Ana’s here – and Dan. And another one, Cat.”

Lydia’s eyebrows raise, practically to her hairline. “Hon.” She waves to gesture the living room, narrowly missing Dan’s head from where he’s sitting on the couch. He looks unimpressed. “There’s no one here.”

“Just because you can’t see through the glamour doesn’t mean they’re not here,” he sighs. “I go through this with Scott whenever he drops in. Honestly.” He points to Dan. “You almost hit Dan in the head just now. And Cat’s over there by the TV. Ana’s sitting in the red armchair.”

Lydia’s eyes narrow. She looks less amused and more frustrated. “There is no one here, Stiles,” she repeats, then looks over at the armchair. Lydia flounces over and just before she lands, Ana disappears and reappears, with a small pop and a flash of blue light, on the other side of the coffee table.

“Rude,” Ana sniffs. “Isn’t she the one who’s been bugging you about your lunch?”

She was and Ana looks just as unimpressed as Dan. She goes and sits on his lap, but her eyes track Stiles as he sits back down in the available armchair.

“So,” he says awkwardly. “Ana – can I talk to Lydia privately?”

“Why?” Ana pouts. Her eyes are serious, even if her expression isn’t. “Come on, Stiles. What _can’t_ you tell us? It’s not like you can talk to her about things.” Her mouth is suddenly a thin line of dark pink. It’s almost red, and it reminds him of Erica’s lipstick. He has to look away. “Or do you want to? Do you think she won’t judge you? She’s not going to understand, not like us.”

“It’s not about that,” he manages at last. Lydia is looking more concerned by the minute. “Can we please just have some –“

“We’re coming back tonight,” Ana announces with narrowed eyes, standing and pulling Dan up with her. She gestures for Cat to follow. “I don’t like this.”

He watches as they blink out of existence, and sighs. He can’t meet Lydia’s eyes, either. “So – fairies?”

 


	7. Chapter 7

Lydia is running her hands through her hair. She’s examining him like she’s not sure how he’ll react to anything she has to say and she’s probably right to be worried.

“You already know the basics, right?” she asks, and he nods.

“After the first incident.” He doesn’t like to talk much about how he’d nearly been seduced into a fairy ring. (Mostly because he can’t say that he doesn’t wish he had been some days.)

She nods, schooling her expression into what he likes to call the Business Face. She suddenly looks five years older and pins him down with her Shut-Up-and-Listen stare. “So, the fey. You know that they like to lure humans and cause basic mischief. They don’t like to travel alone, yada yada. Again, the basics.”

“What about their glamour?” he asks. “That’s what I wanted to know about. I hadn’t read anything about it, so it threw me for a loop.”

“That’s the thing,” Lydia tells him. “The Fey don’t _use_ glamour. At least, not the kind you’re describing. They probably can; they’re magic beings after all, but it’s not a cardinal trait. Fairy glamour is usually used to create illusions – hallucinations.”

“So what you’re saying…”

“… is that they’re probably not Fey,” Lydia finishes with a nod. “I don’t know what the hell they’re using that keeps them from being seen _and_ sensed. The wolves can’t smell them – _I_ can’t sense their magic and that’s one of the few things being a Banshee lets me do. I’m technically a sort of fairy myself and if I can’t sense them, something’s up.”

“What the hell is my life?” he groans, curling up in the armchair. He runs a hand through his hair and grimaces when he notices that it seems thinner.

“Did they ever tell you that they were fairies, or did you just assume?” she asks. When he opens his mouth to object, she rolls his eyes and cuts him off. “I’m not saying that in a rude way. I just want to know if you just guessed based on appearance and other evidence, or whether they told you they were Fey.”

He knows she’s being honest. He’s too quick to rile these days, honestly, without the energy to back up any anger he may have. “I assumed." He pauses. "If they're not fey... what are they then?” he asks, forcing himself to calm down when he realizes how fast his heart is beating, how Lydia’s face is weaving in and out of focus. He pushes it back.

“That’s the thing,” she sighs. “I don’t know. I have a few ideas – pixies, maybe. I thought ‘Ana’ sounded like she could be a Xana – but she doesn’t seem to have a connection to water and now that you have another girl and a boy, it seems even more unlikely. There are a million things they could be, Stiles, and we have very little to go on.”

“I know,” he says after a long silence. “Thanks, Lyds. I appreciate it.”

She smiles wryly. “Yeah. I know you do – one of these days, I’m going to tally up all the times I’ve done something for you and I’m going to cash it in for something pretty.”

Stiles laughs, but it doesn’t necessarily sound right. Lydia doesn’t look at him strangely, though, so he chooses not to focus on it. “Look. I just – please don’t say anything to Scott. He’s got enough on his place with this whole True Alpha bullshit and I don’t want to freak him out.”

“If they’re a threat, you can bet your ass I’m telling Scott,” she warns, voice severe. “Or at least Deaton. Whatever these things are, if they’re hurting you –“

“They’re not, Lydia,” he interrupts. “Honestly. Ana and Dan haven’t hurt me, and Cat didn’t seem bad either. They’re _fine_.”

“Then who the fuck has?” Her voice cuts like a knife and he freezes. For the first time, he realizes how much this has been eating at her. He watches, dumbfounded, as she rises and comes to kneel next to his chair. She takes his hands in hers. “You’re so sad, Stiles, and so cold, and so _small_.”

His heart is beating painfully against his rib cage. “I’m not-“

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice? I know I brushed you aside for years, but we’re friends now, Stiles. You’re so thin – smaller than me, and I weigh 135 pounds.  I’m _already_ skinny. You? You’re skin and bones. You’re not healthy.” This is the most serious he’s ever heard her. That vapid voice she used to put on for Jackson’s benefit is nowhere to be heard.

“That’s what Erica said,” he whispers miserably, throat closing up as the words come out. She seems to understand anyway and stills. Her eyes are wide with shock.

“What do you mean?” Her expression is heartbreaking.

“I dream about her?” It sounds like he’s asking her. “Every night.” He doesn’t want to share this with anyone, but it’s killing him to keep it a secret and Lydia is looking at him with those eyes. “Her, and Boyd – I dream about them, at the Nemeton, every single night and Erica told me I was sick, but I didn’t want to hear it.” He’s shaking, and Lydia is rubbing his upper arms, looking shell shocked and sick to her stomach. He hates being the one to put that expression on her face.

Embarrassingly, his eyes are hot with tears, but when he notices that Lydia is nearly crying herself, it becomes less so.

“Stiles, honey –“ She sounds so unsure, for the first time since they’d met.

“I need you to leave,” he tells her gruffly. His throat feels raw and he rubs furiously at his eyes. “I can’t do this right now.”

“Okay.” She agrees without hesitation and this is the closest he’s felt to a human being since Scott started being too busy with Isaac and Allison to bother with him.

“Please, just don’t say anything,” he begs. “Not to anyone, not now.”

“We’re talking about this later,” she murmurs, but she stands. She pins him with a watery, determined look. “I love you, Stiles. I just want to be there for you.” She puts a hand on his shoulder and leans down to press a soft kiss on his temple before heading for the door.

“Thanks.” His voice is weak as always. He’s starting to hate it as much as he’s starting to hate himself.

She smiles at him bravely. Her eyes are terrified.

“Any time.” 


	8. Chapter 8

He doesn’t know when he falls asleep, curled awkwardly in the armchair, but he knows he’s dreaming as soon as he sees the pure white surrounding him. For a minute, he doesn’t move, just stays curled on the floor in the Erica’s shadow from where she sits on the stump. Then, he glances up.

It’s not Erica waiting for him. The woman who is sits cross-legged on the Nemeton, red eyes flashing. She looks so much like Derek that his heart aches a little. Unlike all the new, familiar faces, he knows this one. “No,” he chokes out. Her smile doesn’t falter. It just looks a little sad.

“It’s nice you meet you, Stiles.” She has a calm, even voice and a confident aura. She’s sure without being arrogant and Stiles thinks – hates himself for thinking – that she would have made such a good alpha. He wishes she’d been given the chance to have more of a pack than her and her little brother. “I’m Laura Hale.”

“I know,” he tells her, voice faint. “I – _oh god_.” He's dreamt about a lot of ridiculous shit, but  _this_ takes the cake. 

“Calm down.” She moves with the grace of a predator, but her expression holds nothing but compassion. “I just wanted to say hello, to thank you for looking out for my brother and his pack.” She pauses. “I’ve gotten to know Erica and Vernon quite well in the After. I thought I would keep an eye on the others I haven’t met.”

“I have the weirdest possible dreams,” he says, a tad hysterically, and Laura’s eyebrows furrow.

“What? Stiles –“

“Am I actually losing it? I knew things weren’t quite right but this is insane! I keep dreaming about dead people and _I’m actually losing my mind –_ “ He wasn’t aware it was possible to have a panic attack in a dream, but he can feel it coming on, strong and heady. The panic is a blanket that closes in on him from all sides, making his breath catch in his chest. He chokes on nothing and scrambles away from the startled woman.

The surprised expression doesn’t last long. “Stiles, stop.” It’s clearly an alpha command.

Some part of him recognizes the order and his breathing halts. He looks at her in terror, but her eyes are steady anchors. “Take a slow breath in.” It’s shaky and too fast. “Breathe out and do it again. Slower, Stiles.”

She talks him through his breathing until he’s taking slow, even breaths on his own. He’s not aware of his sleeping body but he knows that he’s going to feel it tomorrow, that exhaustion that prompts him to skip school.  

“How often does that happen?” she asks him when he’s calmer.

He never wants to lie to Erica or Boyd, but he feels like he physically _can’t_ lie to Laura. Every part of his body is telling him not to. He hangs his head, unable to meet Laura’s eyes. “A lot more recently. Before… before the Nemeton, only once in a lot of years. Since my mom died.” She nods, expression thoughtful and somber.

“Things have gotten worse since you came to the Nemeton for the first time,” she concluded, then at his slightly alarmed expression, rolled her eyes. “I do know what happened. Erica has explained it – though I do think the whole of the After might have felt it when you first made contact.”

He cocks his head to the side, confused. “What do you mean?”

She gestures for him to sit with her atop the stump. “You came with two others, correct?” She waits for him to nod. “Neither of them have the magic energies necessary to bond with the Nemeton, but you? You performed that ritual and it latched on.” She leans over to take his hands in hers. “I can _feel_ it running through your body. The currents of magic within you are incredible.” She smiles a little sadly. “It’s part of why your balance has been off. This magic – it’s not normal, Stiles, and it’s not from the living world. Your spark would have grown on its own and you probably would have been a pretty spectacular druid. From what I knew about you, just from keeping tabs on my brother, I assumed you would become an emissary from the first time you used mountain ash.”

“What about now?” he asks nervously. He doesn’t know if he’s ready for this, and a sinking feeling in his stomach is telling him that he’s been far too complacent about these dreams. Something is definitely off. A horrible revelation is occurring in his head and he’s almost afraid to research any of this when he wakes up to see just how much of this is true.

“Now?” She snorts. “Now you’re a blaze. It’s your magic, but the Nemeton is feeding it.” When she sees his stricken expression, she’s quick to add, “It’s not necessarily a bad thing, Stiles.” But her hands are grasping his and her eyes are widening, glancing down to the thinness of his fingers. She doesn’t push up his sleeves to see the bones of his wrist and arm or ask about it, but he knows she knows. “You need an anchor.”

He blinks at her and nearly pulls away. “What do you mean?”

She lets go of one hand, using that hand to run her fingers through her thick, dark hair. “You know how werewolves have anchors, to keep them grounded and to keep them from going overboard? Nearly every magic being needs one, but you’re so off-balance it’s unhealthy. You need someone to help stabilize you. It can be another druid, a werewolf – but you need one.”

“Why not a human?” His mind is racing – would Lydia agree? Scott?

“Because it’s more than a wolf anchor, really. It uses your magic to create a bond between you. Unless it was another druid, a human wouldn't be able to handle the bond. It would probably kill them." He blanches. "It doesn't necessarily need to be romantic or anything, but you desperately need an anchor bond. The Nemeton’s magic is eating at you, babe.”

“But Scott and Allison –“

Laura huffs, as if in irritation that he's just not getting it. “Aren’t magic, not like you. I’m telling you, it _bonded_ itself to you. It’s feeding you magic. It’s a great honor, among our circles, but usually, the only people who dare to make this kind of connection with a Nemeton are Emissaries who are already bonded to entire packs. You’ve barely got a pack to bond to now. Your best bet is a personal anchor.”

“It’s two-way?” he asks and she nods.

“No mind-reading or anything crazy like that,” she reassures him. “It’s more emotional. The magic will balance between you, instead of bogging you down.”

“Will they be able to use it?”

“No,” she answers. “Really, all they would be doing would be sharing the burden, the darkness. Over time, it will ease until you hardly feel it.”

But could he really ask someone to share this feeling? He knows he never could.

“Thank you,” he tells her. She smiles and holds her arms out. He hesitates but ultimately leans in and wraps his arms around her waist, pressing his face into her neck. “I’m so sorry I never got to meet you.” And he really is.

“We’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other,” she says with a wink. “See you later, Stiles. Do me a favor and use this information to your benefit?”

He can’t promise her that. “We’ll see,” he says, and it’s good enough. Laura’s face blurs in front of his eyes.

He lays in bed for an hour, knowing already that school will have to wait until the next day.

He has research to do. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't even know, guys.   
> On the up side, Derek is going to make an appearance soon! :)

It’s nearly lunch when he gets any sort of communication from the outside world. He’s had his nose in any and all old books about the Nemeton that he collected after the alpha pack had left. He ignores his stomach as it makes another sound, but it’s so weak anymore that he doesn’t bother to do much about it. He has a bowl of orange slices on the floor and he’ll eat those once he answers the text just sent to his phone.

_Checking in. What are you doing?_

_Researching. You?_

_I’m at a club, actually. Cora insisted._

Stiles’s eyebrows raise drastically, but inside his chest, a small coil of jealousy unravels and expands. God, who knew who could be hitting on him at a club?

(He doesn’t belong to Stiles. The jealousy is irrational. He feels it anyway.)

 _What the hell are you doing at a club_? He checks the time. _It’s almost twelve. Who the hell goes clubbing at twelve in the afternoon?_

He flicks through the book he’s on until he gets a reply. _My little sister, apparently. She said it was an effort to get me laid, but I think she just wanted to dance while the floor was mostly empty._

The jealousy is suddenly crippling.

“He was never going to want you, Stiles.” He can’t say when Dan showed up, but he flinches away from his soft, sad voice. Dan looks remorseful, glancing between Stiles and his phone with a knowing look. “He’s _Derek_. You knew from day one that he was meant for beautiful women, that he would only look at you as a friend.”

“I know, but –“

Dan shakes his head. “Answer him, Stiles. Don’t let him know something’s wrong. It’s not his fault.” Stiles nods, and feels some of that fervor he’d felt for his research, the good mood he’d been in, crumble like dust. It’s _his_ fault. He’s so stupid.

He tries to be as casual as he can be. _Video it. I wanna see this._

But he doesn’t, really. Seeing Cora dance like the girl she’s supposed to be would be amusing, yes, but he doesn’t think he wants to see all the other people there who are probably crowding Derek and buying him drinks.

_I probably do need some blackmail material…_

He’s barely able to read it through the tears welling in his eyes. Oh god, something is wrong – he’s having another panic attack. He can feel it swallow him and his vision tunnels. Stiles rises from his barricade of books on the floor and has to brace himself against his desk. He’s always dizzy, but right now, it’s beyond that. His entire world is spinning uncomfortably.

 _Is everything okay_? He can barely read the text when his phone goes off in his hand. _Something doesn’t feel right._

It takes less than a minute for his phone to buzz again. _Stiles, are you all right? Something feels off._

He sits on his bed and bites his lip, hands trembling as he tries to reply.

_everythings okay_

But it’s not and he curses himself when he realizes how uncharacteristic the grammar is. His breath isn’t coming and there isn’t enough air and _everything is his fault._

Dan is sitting in front of him, but Cat is standing behind him now and he feels hands on his shoulder – Ana. He doesn’t want to be touched, feels his heart speed up, feels the temperature of his room spike. “Get away from me!” he wheezes, but if anything, they come closer. Ana is close to his face, sliding her hands down his chest and hugging him tight to her small form.

He wants to pull away. He doesn’t have the strength.

“You’re going to be okay, Stiles,” Cat tells him, and her eyes are red and he leans over and vomits what little is in his stomach onto the floor when he realizes that Cat has Laura’s face.

“ _No, no, no_!” He barely realizes he’s saying it out loud. Dan is leaning in, dark eyes locking on his, grasping at his shoulders.

“Calm down, Stiles,” he says and his voice sounds like Boyd’s and Stiles doesn’t know how he never realized it, _they were all in his head, he’s losing his mind_. “Breathe.” He pauses. “Or don’t. It might be better, you know. If you stopped.”

It sounds so damn reasonable, and Ana is whispering in his ear about how well he did, how good he is. He can see her lips move, painted red and her platinum hair is darker, dandelion colored. He can see what he didn’t before – the shape of her eyes, the curve of her jaw. She is Erica, emaciated and tiny. He feels sicker than before.

 _“_ You’re not real,” he breathes, but it comes out choked and harsh. He still can’t breathe; his lungs are on fire.

Cat is kneeling in front of him. She curls her hands around his wrists, long nails digging into his skin. She seems out of focus. “You know what to do, Stiles,” she hums. While he panics, she sounds so calm. She pulls her long sleeves up to reveal lines and lines of scars, but when he pulls his freed hands away, she just grabs them back. “You could always try it – like you used to, after your mom died.”

He screams, but there’s no air behind it. It’s nearly inaudible. How could she have known? How did she know? No one knew – not Scott, not Lydia, not his dad.

Then he remembers and the girl with Laura Hale’s face that kneels in front of him feels at odds with the woman who had tried so hard to help him last night.

 _The Nemeton’s magic is eating at you, babe_.

“Not,” he manages, then huffs out the rest on a single too-difficult breath. “ _Real_.”

Cat-Laura just smiles at him. “You don’t know that.”

“We’re real,” Ana whispers into his ear, and pets at his hair. He doesn’t want her to touch him.

“We just want to help you, Stiles,” Dan tells him, and they’re all too close. There are black spots in his vision now, but when they come closer and hug him, he just closes his eyes and pretends that he’s not crying, that his face isn’t a mess of tears. His phone buzzes. He doesn’t even attempt to read it.

 _Not real, not real_ , he chants in his head, but they maneuver him so he’s lying down with his head on his pillow and they all curl around him. It’s a mockery of his friend’s memories – of Laura’s memory! – that they are here.

He feels like he’s in a dream-state without the actual dreaming. The not-fairies are both his friends and the opposite of his friends. (Erica would hate to know that it’s her image being used to encourage his self-destruction. He feels guilty even though he knows it’s not his fault.)

He’s not entirely sure if it’s the Nemeton or his own insanity.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates galore. I love these smaller chapters.

“Stiles, hey – Lydia said I should drop by,” Scott says wearily as he slides through Stiles’s window. His friend appears to be sleeping, laying ramrod-straight on the bed. His eyes are closed, but his breathing is unusual. His heart is beating a million miles a minute.

Scott walks forward, eyebrows furrowing at the pile of books. There’s a bowl of orange slices that’s been knocked over and left on the floor, and as he rounds the bed, he sees with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that Stiles has thrown up and didn’t bother to clean it up. The smell is putrid – stomach acid and not much else. He ignores it and walks around it.

“Stiles,” he says again, reaching out to shake his friend’s shoulder. His muscles are stiff under Scott’s hand. He sees Stiles’s phone in his hand, buzzing, and with another unsure look at Stiles’s face, he tugs it out of his friend’s fingers. He sees for the first time how thin they are, and realizes that Stiles is swimming in his hoodie, in his jeans. He feels incredibly cold and wonders how long he’s just looked over it without realizes how small Stiles was getting.

_Stiles, what the hell?_

_Answer me._

_Dammit, call me or something okay?_

_If you don’t answer me in the next twenty minutes I swear to god I’m coming back._

_That’s it. I’m getting Cora and leaving. Fucking text me back!_

He reads over the previous conversation and winces, but he still doesn’t know what’s wrong. He knows that Stiles has a crush on Derek, so it might have been hard to read, but there’s no reason he would stop replying. Then he reads over it again and sees the _everythings okay_ text and realizes that Stiles must have had a panic attack, or something close to it.

He goes to Stiles’s contacts and scrolls down. He presses _talk_.

“ _Stiles!_ ” Derek sounds breathless. Scott can hear the sound of his car in the background. “ _What happened? It’s been an hour and a half._ ”

“Derek?” Scott is a little surprised at how weird his own voice sounds.

Derek’s tone immediately darkens. “ _Scott? Why are you calling me from Stiles’s phone? What’s going on?_ ”

“I don’t know,” he answers, glancing back at Stiles. “But something is definitely wrong.”

“ _What do you see? What happened_?”

“Stiles had a bunch of books out – and he puked? But now he’s just laying here on his bed.” He reaches out to shake him again, and nearly jumps out of his skin when Stiles’s eyes open. They’re remarkably vacant. “He just opened his eyes – but I don’t know! Something’s just wrong, okay? He’s not moving.” His heart beat is calming, but Stiles still isn’t responding. “I think he had a panic attack or something. Things have been weird lately – some fairies or something have been talking to him, but no one can see them.”

There’s a long pause. _“What do you mean, you can’t see them_?”

“They have a glamour or something,” he answered, feeling more and more confused by the minute. “He’s so small, Derek. I don’t know how I didn’t notice – god, I can’t remember the last time I saw him eat.”

“ _Fairies don’t use glamour like that,_ ” Derek says slowly, and he sounds so grave. “ _You said Stiles was the only one who could see them?_ ”

Scott nods, then realizes that Derek isn’t right there and able to see him. “Yeah.”

“ _Shit – Scott, Cora and I are about five hours away. Just keep this under wraps until we get there, okay?”_

“Something’s wrong with Stiles,” Scott says, as if it’s just occurring to him. He hears a little whine, and realizes its him.

“ _Yeah. We’re on our way, all right? Take care of him. Fuck – try to get him to eat?_ ” Scott hears Derek say something to Cora, hears her reply. “ _Something small. I just…_ shit _. I had this feeling something was wrong – he’ll never answer my calls – he’s seemed off for months..._ ”

“How often do you get ahold of him?”

“ _About once a week, since the first time. Cora wasn’t wrong when she said it was a good idea to check in, and I only had his number.  We’ve been talking, texting only since he doesn’t pick up when I call, and I knew something was up, but I didn’t want to start a fight. He always said he was fine…_ ” Scott is a little taken aback at the realization that Stiles and Derek have become _friends_.

Scott kneels down by the books, glances at open pages, and his mouth dries a little. “I think he was researching the Nemeton. Derek, Deaton said something about a darkness after we did that ritual to find our parents.”

Radio silence.

“We were talking about it a month or so ago,” Scott says slowly. “Derek, he told me that he was feeling it, definitely more than I have. What if this has something to do about that?” He blanches, and realizes that he’s been out of the loop. “Shit, Lydia knew! She knew something was wrong; that’s why she told me to check up on Stlies today!” He swore loudly and tugged at his hair.

“ _Get Lydia over there. Don’t say anything to anyone until you talk to her. When does the Sheriff get home? He should probably know, too, but not until you talk to Lydia.”_

Scott hasn’t heard him make reasonable arguments like this in the entire time he’s known him. He thinks, a little sadly, that his vacation did him some good. He lets himself miss Derek – miss the man Derek should have been, the man he’s becoming again – before he shakes himself and sits down on the bed and puts an arm around Stiles’s body.

“All right,” he agrees. “I’ll see you when you get here, then. I’ll call if anything changes.”

“ _Please do. I might be able to make it in four hours, if I speed.”_ Scott hears Cora say something. She sounds tense.

“Don’t get arrested,” Scott jokes weakly, but Derek isn’t having any of it.

“ _See you when I get there_.” The line goes dead and Scott lets out a sigh. He sets Stiles’s phone on his nighstand.

“Hey, buddy,” Scott cajoles, shaking Stiles’s shoulder again lightly. “How abouts you rejoin the land of the living, okay?”

Stiles’s eyes go to Scott’s face, then back to the wall.

Scott gets up and slides into the hallway, pulling out his phone. He has a call to make.


	11. Chapter 11

Lydia grumbles her way up the stairs to Stiles’s room, her heels clacking noisily. She does not appreciate being called from a date with Aiden by Scott, of all people, but at the same time, she’s only barely suppressing panic. She’d sent Scott over for a reason, after all, and if it weren’t for Stiles’s sake, she wouldn’t be there. At it is, she hopes that everything is all right. She’d hate to have to kill Scott for interrupting her date for no reason, but god, she wants Stiles to be okay.

She pushes the door to his room open and immediately recoils, covering her nose. “What is that smell?” she groans.

“Stiles threw up,” Scott says mildly. Cursing her life, she walks into the dark room and glares at the boy sitting on her friend’s bed.

“All right, alpha boy. Gonna tell me why you called me here?” She puts her hand on her hips, but lowers them when she makes out Scott’s expression. “Well?” Her heart beats a little harder than normal, her throat tight with nerves and worry.

Without a word, Scott moves aside so she can see the form on the bed, breathing slowly but otherwise still.

“He won’t respond.” Scott’s voice is nearly a whine. “He opened his eyes earlier, but he looks right through me, or he looks off into space. His heartbeat was really fast earlier, but now it’s slow. It’s like he’s gone into sleep mode.”

Lydia feels very cold all of a sudden. “What happened?” She walks forward with a purpose, surveying the room. There’s a lamp on in the corner, overseeing Stiles’s little book pile, but its light is feeble. She glances down at the puddle of sick. “Do me a favor and clean that up,” she says and her tone makes it very clear that she isn't asking. “I’m going to look Stiles over.”

Scott opens his mouth to argue, but she fixes him with a glare so venomous his mouth shuts with an audible click. He scurries out of the room, and she dances around the puddle to sit herself on the edge of the bed.

“Stiles, honey,” she murmurs in a honey-sweet voice. Unlike her manipulative tone, this one is legitimate. It's the kind of voice that Lydia would use with her own children, that she’d used late at night with Jackson after a nightmare. “Honey, please wake up.”

Like Scott described, Stiles looks at her, but his eyes don't  _comprehend_ that she's there. It's both eerie and heartbreaking. He doesn’t much move, but when she puts a hand on his cheek, he flinches at the light touch.

“Hey, Lydia,” Scott says when he comes back. “Can you move your feet?”

She does so he can clean the sick next to them, curling them under hear on the bed. “Stiles,” she repeats, but her voice sounds thicker than before – wet. “Stiles, could you talk to me, please?”

He doesn’t even look at her this time.

“Lydia, you _have_ to tell me what’s been going on. Why has he been researching the Nemeton? Why is he so fucking _skinny_?”

But Scott doesn’t sound mad; he sounds _scared_.

“I don’t –“

 _“Lydia_. Please.”

She closes her eyes and bites her lip. “He’s been seeing things – people. Two girls and a boy. He thought they were fairies, but they definitely aren’t – Scott, no one can see them but him. And he told me the other day that he’s been dreaming about the Nemeton – he told me he was dreaming about Erica and Boyd.”

Scott goes very, very still. Without a word, he cleans up the mess and sits next to Lydia. “Erica?”

“And Boyd,” she says quietly. “For months now, apparently.” She rubs a hand over her face. “He was in tears when he told me. I could see it in his eyes – something’s been seriously wrong for months.”

“He’s so skinny.”

Lydia doesn’t look back at Stiles, just reaches back to scratch soothingly at his scalp with her nails. “Yeah. I know,” she sighs finally. “But I also know that he wasn’t – it wasn’t really about starving himself. We were trying to talk about it, to figure out what was wrong.”

“But now –“

“Now he’s catatonic,” she finishes for him. She strokes Stiles’s hair. “We can’t really take him to a hospital.”

Scott cocks his head. “What do you mean? I know Derek said not to do anything until he gets here, but –“

“Wait!” She holds a hand up, staring at him incredulously. “What do you mean, _until he gets here_? You didn’t tell me Derek was heading back!”

Scott holds his hands up defensively. “We had more pressing issues, Lydia,” he argues. “Just tell me why he can’t go to a hospital!”

She huffs. “How do you expect us to try and fix him in a hospital room? We can’t exactly explain he has a connection to a giant magical powerhouse fueled by the realm of the dead.”

She has a point, and she sees the exact second that he accepts that. “Yeah,” Scott sighs, then he grimaces. “What are we going to tell his dad?” At that, even Lydia winces. “Oh god, Deaton is going to be so pissed. He _told_ Stiles to come talk to him if things seemed like they were getting worse.”

“I think this qualifies as worse,” Lydia agrees. “Dammit. We should wait for Derek, if he really is coming back. And in the meantime –“

Their eyes met, wide and unsure, as they hear the Sheriff come in through the front door. “Stiles!” They heard him call from the base of the stairs. Neither of them said anything and were still staring at each other in a silent “you say something, _no you_ ” battle. “Stiles?”

The door opens, and Lydia makes a face. “Hi, there, Sheriff Stilinski. Lovely day.”

“Lydia,” he greets her, confusion coloring his features. “Scott. What’s, er, going on? More werewolf stuff? Should I be worried?”

Lydia strokes over Stiles’s hair. “I think we should probably have a little chat,” she says edgily. The Sheriff’s eyes widen as he takes in the prone form of his son.

This was not going to be fun.


	12. Chapter 12

“So my son is in a magical coma?”

Scott winces. Lydia is more focused on coaxing Stiles to eat just _one more bite_ of applesauce. John just feels very, very tired.

“Think less Sleeping Beauty,” Scott hedges.

“And more insanity-driven catatonia,” Lydia says firmly, her expression determined as she spoons more food into Stiles’s mouth. He swallows instinctively, but turns his face away when she attempts to feed him more. With a sigh, she lowers the spoon and sets the bowl on the night stand. “Look, Sheriff. Stiles isn’t okay.”

He glances over at his son, who is watching the wall with dull eyes. The sight nearly makes him break, but he refuses to let this reduce him to the bottle of Jack hidden downstairs. His son needs him to be strong enough for the two of them now. “I know,” he sighs. “He hasn’t been in a long time.” Lydia’s firm expression falters. It’s almost remarkable how easily she forces the mask up again. “I just… I haven’t known how to help him. He won’t tell me what’s wrong.”

Lydia and Scott share a look, then sigh. “You know that we had to do a ritual to find you guys,” Scott says after a few moments of very tense silence. “Well, there might have been a few negative side effects Stiles didn’t want you to know about.”

“Like what, Scott?” John asks, and he feels his heart stutter when Scott looks almost _afraid_ to answer.

“Deaton told us there was a sort of darkness that would stay with us if we did the ritual,” he says. His voice is slow. “I don’t feel it much, and neither does Allison, but I’m thinking… maybe it’s because we have each other to distract us?” He sort of blushes, but it isn’t the time and he clearly knows it. “Stiles just stews in it though. And he told me himself that he was feeling it a lot more than we do.”

“Does this have anything to do with how my kid has lost some weight?” Because he’s noticed the gauntness of Stiles’s cheeks, even if Stiles doesn’t think he has.

“ _Some_ weight?” Lydia snorts. “Look at him. I mean, really look at him.” She takes one of Stiles’s arms and lifts it up, pushing his sleeve up to the elbow.

John feels sick. “He’s so tiny,” he chokes. Lydia nods, then looks guilty for being so harsh about it.

“I think we've all said the same thing. About eight million times. He’s just really good at hiding it. I didn’t even really notice, not until a few weeks ago. And what does that say about us, that we haven’t even noticed?" She laughs without humor, self-depricating. "He’s so good at distracting us. He wears lots of layers and he won’t even give us time to think about the fact that he’s not eating with us.” She runs a hand through her long, strawberry-blonde hair. “We think he’s been seeing things,” she says bluntly. “I don’t think it’s necessarily him – I think it all goes back to the Nemeton – but it has been happening. And he told me he’s been dreaming about Erica and Boyd.”

Scott winces. John feels a little taken aback. Even after all this time, he still can’t connect the two teenagers to this supernatural horror show that’s swallowed them all. All he knows is that he went to funerals, and he watched his son break down at the funerals. He remembers being woken by screams, hysterical sobs of names he’s not familiar with. His son, thrashing in his arms, yelling himself hoarse about _Erica, no! Boyd, Derek!_

He hates to use the word _hysterical_ , but that’s what it was. There was no calming him down until he’d screamed himself hoarse and sobbed himself to exhaustion. John had never seen his son break down like that, not even after his mother died. He didn’t like to think about it, but there had been sleepless nights, but not nightmares. Claudia’s death had been slow and Stiles had accepted it (how could he not; it had happened right in front of him), even if he hadn’t taken it well.

God, John had felt like such a horrible father. He watched, for a year, as Stiles hid himself away. He wore layers and when he talked it sounded like a distraction. Like it was covering up a bigger problem but John just couldn’t figure out how to help him. Just like now.

“I almost wish he were screaming,” John says softly, and only Scott seems to know what he’s talking about. He’d been there one night, but it had been enough. Stiles had never even known he’d shown up. John had walked in and Scott was standing there looking terrified, a marble statue as John held his son in his arm and let him cry and scream. “I don’t like this, this _catatonia_.”

“It’s unsettling,” Lydia agrees, lips pressed tightly together. “He’s so quiet.” Then, he sees this girl – this proud girl he’s watched Stiles pine over for years as she bites her lip and strokes a hand over his son’s hair. (He can’t remember the last time he’d heard Stiles say her name for no reason than other to sing her praises. He can remember Stiles saying another name in his sleep, but that was months ago. Now, Stiles sleeps silently. Like the dead.) “We think he might be connected to the Nemeton somehow,” she announces.

“The magical tree stump? You think it’s hurting my kid?” Lydia replies with a half-glare and Scott just shrugs. John lets out a long, deep sigh. “How the hell do we fix this?” he asks weakly. “How do we help my son? Because I don’t know what we can do. Should I call Deaton?” He used to think it was funny that their go-to guy was the town vet. It’s not funny anymore. He just desperately needs someone to help his son.

“Not yet,” Scott says, and when John’s face is the equivalent of a question mark, Lydia elbows him. Scott seems to remember that he  needs to explain. “I talked to Derek earlier – he said that he should be here in about five –“ He glances at the clock. “Well, four now. About four hours. He told me not to do anything or tell anyone but you two until he gets here.”

“And that sounds like a good idea?” Unbidden, the memory of his son’s voice, weak and sad, comes into his mind. _Derek_. It was plaintive and it reminded him of those times when he would hear Stiles whisper _mom_ in his sleep like a prayer. Like an _I miss you_.

Scott’s jaw is set firmly. “We wait for Derek,” he tells him, like Derek is the answer to all their problems.

John nods, and settles in. He’s not leaving his son’s side until Derek gets there to hopefully make things better.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Taking liberties with ages, so if something seems outrageously wrong, please let me know.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Cora’s voice is soft instead of abrasive. She’s not trying to talk him out of it; she’s trying to make sure he’s making the right decision - but there's not much of a choice, really. The minute he knew something was seriously wrong, it was no surprise that he had his keys in hand and a map up on his phone for the quickest route back to Beacon Hills. He glances over at her and back at the road. He’s trying to focus on the sound of his car instead of the tightness in his chest. (He misses the Camaro. He wishes he still had a reason for his “mom” car. He misses his pack like he misses his family: ceaselessly and overwhelmingly.)

“Our track record with “good ideas” isn’t really that impressive,” Derek says instead of answering seriously, but he knows that she can translate.

“What’s going on with this kid, Derek?” she sighs. “Really. He’s probably the most annoying person I’ve ever met. It’s not like he’s ever done us any favors and you're going to go running back to a place that's practically haunted you for _years_ just because of him?”

“He’s your age; quit calling him a kid,” Derek says with a snort. “And I think you’re forgetting all the times he’s saved my life.”

“Like, twice.”

“I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him,” he plows on. “And neither would you, probably. That _kid_ deserves a little more from the both of us.”

“You’ve saved his life, too, from what I've heard. It’s not like you owe him some debt.”

Derek gave her a hard look. He realizes that they are valid points, because that’s what she does – takes facts and presents them in the most brutally honest way possible. “He’s just seventeen.”

“Yeah, your point? So am I.” The _barely_ goes unsaid. At her words, Derek is stricken with how much of her life he's missed. He glances over again. Cora looks bored, but he can see the concern. She’s not as unaffected as she’s trying to appear.

“And you, unlike him, are fully functional. God, Cora – he’s _been_ there for me. For no reason at all. If I asked him for help, he gave it, regardless of the fact that I was technically a wanted criminal and he had absolutely no reason to help or trust me. He was in it for Scott and he _still_ helped me.” He runs a hand through his hair, keeping a careful eye on the road. Only a few months ago, none of those words would come out of his mouth. He wouldn’t have let them. But now… “Cora,” he says softly. “Cora, he’s not okay.” He doesn’t say how his instincts still insist that Stiles is pack. He’s not the alpha anymore but Stiles is still  _his_ pack. Not Scott's. His. (His instincts are probably wrong, but it doesn't change this ache, like he's physically wrong because he's not there with that stupid, clever kid and his warm, open eyes.)

“What has that boy done to your head,” she says, but it’s almost teasing. Weak teasing at best, but he’ll take what he can get.

“I don’t know,” Derek says and grins a little shakily when she snickers at him. “I just can’t leave him hanging. I don’t know what’s wrong, but he got involved in this – he was involved even before his dad was taken, because of us. Because of me. I feel responsible.”

He didn’t say it, but apparently Cora doesn’t have any objects to doing it for him. “He’s pack.”

Derek examines her expression and nods when he sees the acceptance there. “Sort of. I can’t really explain it. I just know I can’t leave him hanging.”

“I just want you to be okay.” There’s a long pause. “Derek, you’ve gotten better in the last few months. Before we left Beacon Hills, I barely recognized you. And not to be weird, but the most normal you were was whenever you were sassing it up with Stilinski.” She shrugs. “I’m not saying that it’s not weird because believe me, it _so_ is. But if you think you’re ready – I understand why you want to go back.”

“I left because I wanted you to have a break,” he tells her. “One word, and I’ll take you wherever you want to go and go back alone, if you don’t want to come with me. But I need to be there.”

“Of course I’m coming back with you, douche bag,” she laughs, but the sound is almost strangled sounding. “Really. Like I would leave you – after all that’s happened. Did you think I would?”

He shrugs, feeling a little self-conscious. He shakes his head and then takes a deep breath. He’d forgotten what it was like to have real emotions. “I’m so fucking scared,” he admits and Cora’s expression softens. She puts a hand on his arm, silently urging him to continue. “Scott sounded so terrified when he called me. He said Stiles was unresponsive, whatever the fuck that means – said he thinks Stiles had a panic attack.”

This is the most he’s said about why they’re going back. Before, it had been only _something is wrong with Stiles._ The most she’d known is what she’d been able to gather from the phone call.

“Those aren’t new symptoms,” Cora tells him slowly, like she's been thinking about it. She probably has been. “Those just don’t come out of nowhere - Derek, this is more than some passing thing.”

His jaw tightens, then he relaxes himself by force. “I know.” He sounds almost ashamed of himself and he’s even more ashamed that it’s showing. He used to be so much better at hiding how he was feeling. (That’s because he didn’t like to _feel_ , period.) “I’ve had this feeling that something’s been off for months. Since before I got back in touch with him.”

“Is that why you check in so often?” she asks, quietly. “Because, jeez, I said you should probably let them know you’re okay – but you text him every couple days.”

“We’ve become friends. We talk sometimes, when you’re sleeping, or in the shower.”

“It sounds like it’s a good thing,” she says after a moment. “For both of you.” He lets silence reign for a few minutes. She breaks it. “Derek… I just want you to be prepared, okay? Because you’re not really good at this.”

He glares at her. “Good at _what_ , exactly.”

She stares back, gaze level. “At caring about people. Look, all I’m trying to say is that it sounds like there’s a lot of shit going on with Stilinski. You care about him, god knows why, and with your problem for trying to take care of people…”

“What are you trying to say?” he huffs, but she just winces. (He knows she doesn’t want to have to say it as much as he doesn’t want to hear it.)

“I don’t want you to beat yourself up if you can’t fix what’s wrong, okay?” she says. “You blame yourself every time something goes wrong and if Stiles – if he’s not all right, I refuse to let you hurt yourself over it.”

“Stiles will be fine.” He’s almost shocked at the vehemence in the statement. (He’s even more shocked at how much he means it. He’s desperately holding onto that thought. Stiles will be fine. Stiles who was there when he didn’t need to be – Stiles who texts him when he can’t sleep and says things that somehow make Derek feel lighter than he’s felt in years.)

“But if he’s not –“

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there, all right?” he says sharply, and she shuts up.

Her eyes are pitying and he doesn’t like it. “All right.”

“Just a few more hours,” he announces softly. “Just a few more hours, okay?” He takes a deep breath. “Thanks, by the way. For being here.”

She manages a smile. “Yeah. You’re welcome.”

Derek’s returning smile is forced. He glances at the clock, then the passing road signs. _Just a few more hours_.


	14. Chapter 14

Lydia runs a hand over her skirt and sits next to Scott. She hands him a soda she’d stored in the fridge earlier and leans back against the sofa cushions. “So, you know. About Stiles’s feelings for Derek.”

“It wasn’t like he was great at hiding it,” Scott says, then grimaces and shakes his head. “Well. Not when he’s asleep. If I couldn’t pick up on the way he looked at him, it wasn’t hard to figure out that he at least cared.”

Lydia cocks her head, and Scott realizes that for once in his life, he’s actually managed to keep his mouth shut. (That’s probably because he tried so hard to forget about it.) “What do you mean?” she asks softly.

The thing is that Scott doesn’t _want_ to keep his mouth shut anymore. Not about Stiles, not now. “That week when we all thought Derek was dead?”

Lydia raises her eyebrows. “What about it?”

“I needed to talk to him about something; I don’t remember what,” he confesses quietly. Lydia tenses. “I came in through the window, and I was walking toward the bed. I guess I just had really bad timing.” He hangs his head. “He was screaming, so loudly. I don’t think I’ve _ever_ seen him like that. Yelling his head off in his sleep and crying – sobbing, really. He kept saying their names, all three of them. Erica, Boyd, Derek. Over and over again, every time he could get a breath through the tears. God, Lydia – I was so scared.” He admits it in a whisper.

Lydia is very, very still.

He rubs his hand over his eyes, tries not to remember Stiles’ face. (Ruddy cheeks, a mess of tears. Sheer _agony_.) “I just stood where I was, too scared to move, and his dad came in. But – he didn’t even look _surprised_. Grim, maybe. Like he’d suspected it would happen, that it had happened before. He had to come in and hold Stiles down and the entire time Stiles was just jerking out of his dad’s grip and screaming about Derek being dead. That was the main one. He would say Erica and Boyd’s names, too, but he always ended it…” _Not Derek, too, not Derek, too._

“How long has this been going on?” she asks, sounding alarmed. Her expression is indignant, but underneath it her eyes are sad. Scott shrugs, a tad helplessly.

“Since at least the kanima,” he answers, refusing to feel bad for Lydia’s slight flinch. “I guess holding a guy up in the water for two hours creates a bond, or something. I don’t know.”

“I never understood how that worked,” Lydia says softly. “I'm not trying to say that Stiles is weak, because he’s not. But Derek is what, 200 pounds of pure muscle?” She shrugs helplessly. “I just really hope that Derek appreciates him doing that. It’s not easy, holding that up and treading water for any length of time.”

Scott gives her a tiny smile. “Oh, I know he does. I don’t think he ever said anything to Stiles, but he mentioned it to me. He wouldn’t have even brought it up if it didn’t matter.” He sighs. “I just – I feel bad? About Derek just rushing back. He left to get better, to finally do something for him.”

“But at the same time, maybe it’ll help? Both of them, maybe,” Lydia suggests, and Scott nods. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I actually don’t feel like I can wait for him to get back.” She gives a humorless chuckle. “I don’t want to get my hopes up about it, but – I’m allowed to hope that Derek can help, right?”

“Yeah,” Scott says, and pats her on the knee. She actually allows it, and he thinks that shows how much they’ve grown up better than anything else. “I hope he can, too.”

They sit in silence until John comes back down, looking helpless and dejected. “He’s asleep, I think. It’s kind of hard to tell.”

Scott just looks down. Lydia, in another uncharacteristic show of loyalty, lays a hand on his shoulder. “Did you get him to respond at all?” she asks instead of commenting on either of their expressions. This may be the only time where she is as useless as they are, and it stings.

John looks like he’s weighing his options, then gives up and sits in the armchair by the sofa. “He looked at me – half-lucid – for a second when I told him that Derek was coming. But I had to say it three times, and in the end he just looked away. Like he’d just decided not to believe me.” He massages the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “What even is this? Is this, like, part of the supernatural thing? Is it making him act like this? Or –“

Lydia cuts him off. “It’s more like the mind’s reaction to heavy stress. Panic, fear, trauma. I don’t know if I want to call it real catatonia – but he’s just… shut down. He’s blocking all of us out. Like, it’s going through but it’s not really meaning anything to him. Does that make sense?”

John nods, but he looks more tired than before. “So this isn’t the magic tree thing.”

“It’s a product of – but no, I don’t think it forced him into this. I think – I think something must have happened with the people he’s been seeing.”

The sheriff’s eyes fly up to meet Lydia. “What do you mean?”

She runs a hand through her hair, like she doesn’t really want to talk about it again, but knows there’s no way around it. So she tells him, and he hangs his head like Scott is doing. He hides his face in his hands and makes a low sound – not quite a sob. Closer to a cough, but still a sound of grief. (Scott can relate. His wolf, those instincts – they make him want to walk outside and howl at the moon. He wants to sing his pain and worry to the moon in the only way he can.)

Allison has been texting him every few hours since noon – probably worried, because this is the first time maybe _ever_ that he hasn’t replied. He has two from Isaac as well, both of them asking about Stiles because Isaac is clever and Isaac has been talking to Danny. Scott wishes Stiles was okay enough to appreciate how much worried his friends were, how lost they were.

He comforts himself with the thought that Stiles will be, in time. Scott won’t let himself think anything else.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek is home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won't be able to update tomorrow, and pushed myself to take half an hour to write this. The Long-Awaited Reunion!

“We’ve only been gone for what? Five months?” Cora murmurs as they roll into town. “It still seems so weird to be back.”

“Yeah,” he agrees, watching the road. He doesn’t allow himself a good look around. It’s no time to get distracted with nostalgia. He has priorities. “I guess it is weird.”

Cora side-eyes him. “You’re doing forty.”

“So?”

“In a twenty-five.” Her tone is flat. He throws a glare her way, glancing back to turn onto the main road through town. Cora just snorts, unimpressed. “Honestly, I don’t think a couple minutes are going to make much of a difference. From Scott’s update he seems pretty stable.”

“You can’t blame me for wanting to get out of this damn car.”

All is silent for a moment. “You know, no one would blame you if you got the Camaro back.” Derek doesn’t respond; to be honest, he doesn’t even really want to think about it.

Cora had been shocked when she’d found out he’d stopped driving it. The car had been Laura’s. She’d gotten it as a graduation present, just before her freshman year of college – but she never had much time to appreciate the gift. After the fire, Laura had refused to even wash it. What had been a gift from their parents became no more than their method of transportation. Derek was the one that had cleaned it every weekend, who had made sure there weren’t any scratches or dents.

Everyone had assumed he’d sold it when he got the Toyota, but Cora knew better.

“I told Mary she could drive it,” he tells her tensely. “I’m not going to let her have it for a couple months and just take it back.”

“It’s been like, half a year!” Cora sounds appalled. Derek had introduced her to Mary when they’d visited New York, but Cora wasn’t particularly impressed. “And it’s _your_ car. Mary knows that you won’t give it to her permanently.” (She’s right. It is his car. It is Laura’s and his and maybe one  day, Cora’s.)

They turn onto the street Stiles lives on. “We’re not talking about this right now,” he says firmly as he parks behind the cruiser. It’s dark and he can hear a low howl from inside the house. Scott definitely knows he’s here. “Come on.”

She follows him to the front door. As expected, it’s yanked open before he can even touch the knob.

“Derek,” Lydia says. Her tone is both judgmental and relieved. (He doesn’t know how she does it.) “Cora,” she adds with a nod. Her and Cora never really had the chance to become friendly and, well, Lydia isn’t quite friendly to begin with. “Well, come in already.”

He follows her in. Scott sees him and stands, look ten as relieved as Lydia did with none of the judgment. “Oh, thank god,” he sighs, coming forward to enclose Derek in a surprisingly unreserved hug. “I haven’t known what the _fuck_ I’m supposed to do. Dude, I am so glad you’re back.”

Derek lets himself breathe. “Yeah. I’m glad to be back, too.” He’s not sure if he means it, really, but it doesn’t ping as a lie. “Where is he?”

That sobers them all up. Priorities, he reminds himself. “Upstairs,” Scott replies. The sheriff isn’t even looking at him. He’s sitting with his face in his hands, tuning them all out. (Derek’s sure it’s got to suck to put his hopes in a man he’s arrested. Derek doesn’t blame him. At all.) “But Derek… it’s not pretty.”

Derek takes another deep breath. “I think I’ll be able to handle it. I just want to see him. Cora, can you stay down here? Tell them about Chicago, or something.”

“I can handle myself, bro,” she snorts, but lets him ascend the stairs by himself.

Stiles’s room is dark, but he can see well enough to make his way to the lamp next to his bed and turn it on low. Stiles’s eyes open, but he doesn’t seem to register Derek’s presence. Derek is frozen, whether Stiles responds or not. He hasn’t seen Stiles in months, but he _hadn’t been prepared_. Not for this. He didn’t know what he’d expected when Scott told him that Stiles was skinny, but it wasn’t this. Not this skeleton.

He’d been rolled onto his back and he’s lying there, his head turned toward Derek. For a minute, he only lets himself take in Stiles’s face. That’s bad enough; there are bags under Stiles’s eyes so dark that if Derek didn’t know any better he’d say Stiles hadn’t been sleeping. (The bed is saturated in his scent. He spends more time there than anywhere else in his room.) His cheeks are so thin and his eyes seem huge. He’s always been bambi-eyed but this is different. Finally, Derek makes himself look down. His neck is thinner than it has any right to be and his t-shirt is too big. It shows his collarbones as they jut out obscenely, and when his eyes look down he takes in the outline of Stiles’s ribs, the sharp edge of his hipbones. His limbs are like twigs and Derek can hardly breathe anymore. Without thinking about it, he goes forward and sits on the edge of the bed.

He puts a hand on the boy’s cheek, turns his face to meet Derek’s eyes. There is a spark of recognition, but it’s deep, deep within the amber. “Stiles,” Derek murmurs. He sounds more hoarse than he has a right to. “Stiles.”

He doesn’t move, but his eyes stay on Derek’s.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, because for some reason, he feels like this is _his fault_. He pulls Stiles close to him, presses a finger to his throat and searches out his pulse, just so he can feel it under his fingers. He feels magic burst from Stiles’s skin, into his, but it’s not something he can use. It makes him feel more alert, makes what he refers to as his wolf purr in satisfaction. Almost immediately, he feels Stiles’s body relax.

“We’re going to be okay,” he says quietly. He doesn’t want Scott to hear this. “Okay? We’re going to be all right.”

Stiles doesn’t give him a response, not really, but he does turn into Derek’s palm ever so slightly and allows his eyelids to slip shut. 


	16. Chapter 16

Derek goes back downstairs when Stiles is asleep (shown only by the closing of his eyes and the slower _thud-thud_ of his heart) to find Cora, Lydia, and Scott in deep discussion. The Sheriff is missing, probably trying to figure out how he can even handle what his life has become. All three fall silent when he enters the living area.

“How did we go five months without anything being said until now?” he asks, and you would think he’s still the alpha for the scent of shame and almost _fear_ that suddenly pours out of these teenagers in front of him. He chooses to believe it’s because he’s the only adult and about six feet of pure muscle, not out of any lingering fear _of_ him. “I mean, you’ve all known that I’ve been in touch with him. How could you not find a way to tell me he’s a _fucking skeleton_?” His volume rises without him intending for it to.

Even Cora looks a bit alarmed. “Derek –“ Scott says weakly, but Lydia puts a hand on his arm.

“It’s a little different for you than it was for us,” she tells him in a low voice. “We – we watched it happen gradually. There were always those thoughts that maybe he was getting a bit skinny, but it wasn’t an abrupt change – we didn’t even really _notice_ until the past three or so months. The last time you saw Stiles, it was before any of this started happening, so of course it would be a shock to visit and realize he’s completely changed.”

“How do you not notice?” he hisses, but the painful thump of his heart is more disbelief than anger. Disbelief and worry over Stiles. “God, he barely looks like himself.” The memory of those angles, apparent even through a t-shirt, make Derek want to shudder.

“He was good at hiding it,” Scott says quietly, and he sounds so heartbroken – he sounds so fucking _ashamed_ of himself that Derek slumps all at once and throws himself into an armchair. “Until he asked Lydia to do research on the things he was seeing, none of us had any real idea that there was something this wrong. I knew he’d lost weight and that he looked tired, but he wouldn’t talk about it. If I asked, he’d evade it.” He bites his lip and to Derek’s horror, there are tears welling in his eyes. “I should have asked more.”

He bows his head, and Lydia rubs a circle into his back.

“Tell me more about the people he was seeing,” Derek sighs, glancing over at Lydia.

She meets his gaze. “He told me about them a while ago, asked me to research fairies because he didn’t know much about glamour. I told him what Scott says you told him on the phone – that the fey don’t use glamour to hide themselves. Even if they did, we’d still be able to track the magic, or scent them. I told him that I don’t know of any creatures that can do that, but he kept insisting that they had to be _something_.”

“Were they hurting him?” Derek asks quietly.

Lydia shrugs. “I don’t know. He insisted that Ana and Dan were good – the first two. There was a third, the last time I saw him, whose name was Cat or something like that. He just wouldn’t listen to me about it, though –“

“ _Wait a second_.” Cora looks incredulous and more than a little freaked out. “Ana, Dan, and Cat? You’re _positive_ that those were their names?”

Lydia nods, looking startled. “Why?”

Cora makes a face, pulling out her phone. “I did a project on this sort of thing in a summer course I took after I got my GED,” she says slowly, glancing up at Derek. (He was so proud to hear that she’d gotten it. The only reason he had gotten his was because of Laura’s nagging.) “ _Ana_ is a slang term for anorexia.”

Silence reigned.

“And the other two?” Scott asks in a whisper.

Cora makes a face and hands him her phone, showing him the picture she’d found on Google. “Dan is depression and Cat is self-harm. They’re names for disorders that are more personified. You see it more on the internet, with bloggers and the like.”

Derek’s eyes met Scott. “What are the chances that he’s seen this?”

Scott shrugs helplessly. “Probably pretty good? Stiles knows a little about everything and he spends so much time on the internet – he’s probably come across it.”

Lydia looks overwhelmed. “He was researching the Nemeton. He told Scott that he’s been feeling the darkness. What if it was messing with him in more than one way?” Scott opens his mouth, but she cuts him off. “No, seriously. What if the Nemeton was manifesting more than we thought? Ana, Dan, and Cat – no one can tell that they’re there except Stiles. How would we not notice?”

“You think it’s more likely that Stiles is seeing them,” Derek says, feeling a little dumbfounded. “But that they’re not real? That he’s hallucinating?”

“Or maybe schizophrenia?” Cora suggests. “Whatever it is, it’s likely that it comes from the Nemeton’s darkness. What was he researching about it?”

Lydia moves closer to Cora. “From what I can tell, it was about bonding.”

Derek sits a bit straighter. “Wait.” A flicker of memory from his childhood. “Bonding? As in, with the Nemeton?”

“Is that even possible?” Lydia asks. Scott just sits there, looking alarmed. (He looks like he doesn’t know what to do. Derek doesn’t blame him. He doesn’t know either.)

“Mom used to talk about it,” Cora says and Derek refuses to think about how much softer his sister’s voice was on the word _mom_. “I don’t remember much about it – Uncle Alan had a friend who was bonded to a Nemeton. Do you remember anything?” She turns to Derek.

 _Uncle Alan_? Scott mouths in Derek’s direction. He almost smiles; he had nearly forgotten how close they had all been, when Deaton was still family and he still had a community of people to love. “Bonding with a Nemeton meant a lot of excess magic,” he says instead. “I don’t remember much more than you do, but I do remember that. It used to be a huge honor, but it’s dangerous and really rare now because the magic would completely destroy any emotional stability without an anchor. The magic that the Nemeton shares is way too much for a normal person, and isn’t really of this world, so to speak. It was more likely to happen to emissaries, because they had entire packs to anchor to and help balance them.”

“You think Stiles was bonded to the Nemeton,” Scott says. He sounds wounded. “And that magic is just… what? Eating at him?”

“That’s what it looks like,” Derek says, then closes his eyes tightly and massages at his temple.

There’s a few long minutes where none of them say anything. Finally, Lydia says what they’re all thinking. “I think we need to talk to Deaton.” 


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really excited about the next chapter so it should be (?) a pretty fast update. <3 Love you guys. Thank you thank you thank you for the support!

Lydia is nothing if not observant. She takes in the tense line of Derek’s shoulders, the tight ball of his trembling fist. She’s never been particularly close to Derek, but even she knows this display of emotion is unusual and she doesn’t even need to look at Cora to confirm it through the discomfort in her expression. It is a precious display of trust and Lydia feels almost fragile for the first time, afraid of breaking and being broken. For the first real time, it occurs to her just how much they are all giving to each other, how open each and every one of their expressions are. Even her own mask lowered after the Sheriff retreated to the kitchen.

“We need to talk to Deaton,” she repeats. “But Stiles didn’t want anyone to know.” She coughs and refuses to look away from her knees, then reprimands herself for the weakness. Her voice causes Derek to look up anyway. She can feel his eyes on her even if she won’t meet them.

“I don’t think Stiles gets to make that choice anymore,” Derek says firmly. If Lydia were anyone else, she would say that the intensity in his eyes in frightening. (She wants to look down again.) “Not now. He is so far from okay it’s laughable, and you want to respect his wishes about keeping quiet about it? For all we know, this could be permanent!”

She looks up and her jaw tightens. She doesn’t look down again. (This, coming from the man who just _left_? At least she’s been here. At least she watched him and tried to protect him.) “It was more of a warning,” she says instead, through gritted teeth. “That he won’t be happy when he wakes up. You know how he is. He prefers to do everything himself. That’s why he wouldn’t just let us help.” And she tries to look strong and tries to hold onto her anger but the reminder from her own mouth that she was useless…

“He doesn’t get that luxury anymore,” Derek hisses, and she finally sees the layers of guilt underneath the aggression. To everyone’s surprise, it’s Scott that speaks up. Cora looks the most taken aback, half out of her chair to go comfort her brother when Scott speaks.

“I’m sorry,” he opens with and Derek is shocked into stillness, all aggression bleeding from him. “I should have paid more attention; I should have _noticed_.” None of them know who is apology is aimed toward. (Lydia privately thinks that most of all, it’s to Stiles.) “How could I not see this?”

“It’s not your fault,” Cora says softly, and Scott – for the first time she’s seen since fifth grade, when he broke his leg – begins to sob, entirely overwhelmed and drowning in worry.

Lydia thinks she’s been shocked enough for one night, but Derek lets out a low sound and comes forward, putting an arm around Scott’s shoulder and her almost-friend seems to forget that he’d spent almost a full year nearly hating Derek; he throws himself into the embrace and cries loudly into Derek’s shoulder. Derek isn’t crying with him (Lydia almost makes a halting joke that his emotional development had only gotten to around 80% before coming back and stops herself) but he looks like he wants to as he grips Scott tight.

Scott may have come around to thinking of Derek as a brother, but Lydia has never taken it as seriously as she is now. Derek _is_ a big brother, trying to help hold someone else together while barely keeping himself in one piece.

Cora and Lydia share horrified looks, but to her horror Lydia starts crying herself when she realizes that Scott is still _apologizing_ , words muffled by Derek’s henley.

She excuses herself, and when she comes back half an hour later Scott is upstairs checking on Stiles and Cora is in the kitchen, talking in a low voice to the Sheriff. She doesn’t here much in return to Cora’s greetings and inquiries, but the odd word here and there is enough to make sure that everything is okay.

She sits next to Derek on the couch. “I wanted to tell you something,” she says and takes a deep breath, because she doesn’t want to do this to him. This poor man she barely knows who has had so much suffering he’s less a person and more a walking vat of pain and guilt. “I don’t… I can’t say it in front of Scott again.”

Derek looks up from his lap and looks at her. She can’t bear the look on his face and wishes – oh, she _fucking wishes_ – that he hadn’t gone on his little adventure, that he still knew how to hide his emotions because she just can’t deal with his pain on top of hers. “What? What can’t you say in front of Scott? _Why_ can’t you say it?”

She shuts her eyes shut tight because she refuses to see his expression. “I told you Stiles has been dreaming about the Nemeton, but I didn’t – he told me yesterday-“ Not yesterday, she thinks. It’s already Tuesday. Sunday, he’d told her. “He told me that when he dreams about the Nemeton, he sees Erica and Boyd. He can talk to them. He said he dreams about them every single night, and I wouldn’t make a big deal about it, but I was looking at some of his research.”

Derek physically jerked when she said their names and she squeezes her eyes shut even tighter. “And?” His voice sounds raw.

“The Nemeton is a link to the dead, Derek – wherever they go, the Nemeton is practically a portal. I just wanted you to know that his dreams… they might be part of it. They might be more than dreams. He told me that Erica was telling him that he was sick.” She swallows. “She told him, in one of his dreams, that he was sick and he didn’t want to listen.”

Derek doesn’t say anything for a very long time.

“Thanks for letting me know,” he tells her finally. “I’m going to go check on Stiles.” They both ignore the fact that Scott is already up there. She lets him go.

She would walk out, too.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I suck. A lot. Sorry for how late this is; I haven't been this stressed in years. The chapter just didn't want to come - and neither did either of the two essays I have to write. So it's not just you guys I'm neglecting.

Stiles thinks he recognizes Derek’s face. He’d heard his name earlier, he was almost sure of it, but then, he almost always thinks he recognizes Derek when he’s not really there and when he hears voices call out, it’s never the right Derek they’re speaking of. It’s hard to tell if it’s really him through Erica-Ana’s blonde hair, over Laura-Cat’s scarred arm, over Boyd-Dan’s musculature. They’re all wrapped around him and he doesn’t really know where one starts and another begins. They are all extensions of another, now. Extensions of _him_.

“I miss you so much.” He doesn’t say it out loud, but it almost seems like he does. Derek looks so sad, cradling Stiles’s face around Their bodies. “Why do you look like that?”

“You’re hurting him,” Dan whispers. The melancholy in his voice gives Stiles pause. “Just by existing, you’re hurting him. Don’t you just wish it would go away?”

“A little mark, right here,” Cat murmurs, caressing his wrist, his thigh.

“A little less here,” Ana agrees, swiping one thin, skeletal hand over his stomach. “You’re already so beautiful. What’s a little more?”

But he can’t really concentrate on them because Derek is just sitting there with him, holding him, and his hands are warm (he thinks). He doesn’t feel connected to his body. To be honest, things went a little fuzzy the moment Derek touched him. Some of the tension drained away, some of the _buzz_ underneath his skin seemed to seep from his skin. He floats obviously as his magic attempts to drain further, to stable out.

“I’m so sorry,” he hears, and thinks that maybe Derek (is he really Derek? He’s dreamt about Derek before. He doesn’t care.) has been speaking, and he’s been missing it.

“It’s okay,” he says comfortingly, and it takes him a long time to realize that the words didn’t actually come out of his mouth. He shrugs mentally.

“We’re going to be okay,” Derek tells him, and if he could beam, he would. Just like Derek to know what he’s thinking without him having to say it out loud. “Okay? We’re going to be all right.”

Stiles is, weirdly, comforted. “Yeah,” he agrees (silently). He feels so tired, like some of the stress on his body has melted, and tries to turn his face into Derek’s palm, to kiss his skin. It’s a delusion; why not? He doesn’t think he makes it that far physically, but when he slips into sleep it is not plagued by nightmares like he would have thought.

Erica is waiting for him, tapping her foot patiently against the white floor. She looks ferocious, while Laura Hale stands completely calm at her side. He’d always had this mental image of Laura – an even angrier, alpha version of Derek with boobs – but pretty much the only things he’d gotten right were the boobs and the alpha part.

“I _told_ you,” Erica hisses immediately when she sees his awareness. “I told you this was going to go bad. Why don’t you ever listen to me?”

She isn’t quite wolfing out, though he knows somehow that if she were alive on earth, she would be. What is happening is much more complicated than that. Her entire being is fading in and out, like she’s being slowly smothered by the aura of her wolf. There is no fang, no glowing eyes. Just the rumble of a growl and the realization that Boyd was right. She is not a werewolf – she is both wolf and human.

Laura is the one to place a calming hand on Erica’s shoulder, taking deep breaths that Erica instinctively mimics. Slowly, she manages to control herself.

“We only want you to be all right,” Laura tells him quietly. “And you’re not. Even your friends have noticed now.”

He doesn’t know how he could ever be all right again, with this crushing weight on his lungs, on his mind, on his heart. ‘All right’ is a fragile, foreign thing. “Derek came back,” he says instead. He lets himself give sound to the wonder, to the happiness he’s feeling. He doesn’t want to talk about him anymore. “I thought, at first, that it was another illusion, like the others. But I don’t think it is. I have this feeling that it’s really him.”

“Illusions,” Erica repeats, like she doesn’t already know. (Maybe she doesn’t. She knew something was wrong but could Stiles blame her for not knowing what?)

“Ana, Dan, and Cat,” he says, and it may be the first time he’s given their names. Erica has a moment of recognition, then hot anger. She doesn’t say anything, letting him finish. “They’re not real. I _know_ they’re not, they can’t be – they look like you.”

Erica’s furious expression melts into horror. “What do you mean, they look like me?”

“Ana looks like you, only really small,” he explains in a quiet voice. He feels so tired even though he’s asleep. “And Dan is like Boyd, but sadder.” His eyes flicker up to Laura.

“The last one is like me,” she says.

“Sort of,” he says awkwardly. “Like I said, they’re only _like_ you. They’re not real. It’s like they represent those awful parts of me that I hate – but they comfort me, try to help me. But not in ways that I need to be helped.” Erica blinks at him and he flushes. “It’s complicated, all right?”

“Derek came back,” Laura murmurs, breaking the silence. “And Cora?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I only know Derek came because he came to see me. He held me and –“ _And some of the pain went away_. He looked up at Laura with eyes full of wonder. “He made me feel better. Less… overwhelmed.”

“The power of true love,” Erica snorts, but her eyes are kind. “I’m glad he’s back.” Laura gives her a smile and Stiles is glad they have each other. Erica and Boyd – they need a good alpha, and he has the feeling that Laura is the best. “Come on, Batman,” she sighs, taking his hands and pulling him up. “Let’s get comfortable and you can tell me all about my brother and your sparkly love feelings for him.”


	19. Chapter 19

Isaac taps his phone against his palm impatiently, his body tense and a little jumpy. His eyes follow Allison as she paces from one end of her bedroom to the other. She’s as stiff as he is, her expression closed off.

“Something’s wrong,” she tells him, as if he didn’t already know. He nods.

“He won’t answer my texts,” she hisses at him, as if Scott was answering any more of his than he was of hers.

“Why did Aiden say Lydia cancelled their date?” she asks him, one hand fisted in her hair.

“Why do I feel like something’s changed?”

She sits next to him on her bed and sighs heavily. Isaac takes a moment to wish Scott was there. He was a perfect buffer for this _thing_ between the three of them. “Something’s been wrong for months,” Isaac offers and she hangs her head. He doesn’t know what to do and wraps an arm around her because it’s the best he’s got. “Not – not with us, though. Right? It’s something else?”

“It’s pack,” she says and suddenly it makes perfect sense. It’s not any one of them, specifically, but it’s _someone_. “Something is wrong, but it’s not us.”

And Isaac knows that she would know if anything was wrong. With the _darkness_ , it’s hard not to. Still, to be honest, Isaac thought there would be more of an impact from it. At most, it seemed like both Scott and Allison just dropped a little easier than before, emotionally. They were more tuned in when things turned for the worst.

Isaac’s phone rings. 

“Scott?”

“Scott!”

It’s difficult to tell which voice is Allison and which is Isaac; their voices meld together seamlessly. “ _Yeah, hey_ ,” Scott sighs from the other end. “ _Sorry. I just saw all your messages._ ”

“Where have you been?” Allison demands, like it’ll make him talk faster.

Scott sighs heavily and Isaac feels  a little more on edge. Scott rarely sounds so bone-weary. As of late, it’s Stiles who owns that department, and before that, it was Derek. Then, it clicks. Scott, and then Lydia? The strange energy shift in their little rag-tag pack.

“What happened to Stiles?” he asks, and he sees the moment it comes together for Allison, too. Her jaw drops a centimeter  before snapping shut.

“ _I’m not even going to ask how you guessed,”_ Scott tells him. “ _He’s going to be okay, physically. I think. But there’s a lot wrong and I don’t know how to say any of it.”_ There’s a long silence while they all try to figure out what to say. “ _Derek and Cora are here,”_ Scott says instead. “ _He looks better._ ”

Isaac freezes a little. Derek is on his mind a lot lately – a lot _all the time_ to be honest. Derek might not have been the best alpha all the time but dammit, Derek was family. He’d cared for Isaac more than either his father or his brother ever had. He’d made him stronger and he’d tried so hard to make Isaac a better home. Just because he himself didn’t know what home really was didn’t mean the effort didn’t mean anything.

“We’re coming over,” Allison says for him.

“ _Al, that might not be the best-“_

She hangs up his phone and slips into his pocket. Her gaze is dark and stony. “We’re going,” she says and her voice firm. She’s not asking. Predictably, Isaac’s big mouth is shut tight. He can sass off to anyone else but when Allison’s like this he’s not going to say a word. He just gets up and follows her to the car.

She speeds the entire way to Stiles’s house, taking too-sharp turns with a tight jaw and her muscular arms flexing every time she yanks the steering wheel in any given direction.

“What’s wrong with him?” she snaps the minute the door is opened. Cora stands in the doorway, entirely unimpressed.

“Do I look like his keeper? Go ask my brother. He actually cares,” she snaps at Allison, who rears her head back like she’s been slapped. In spite of her harsh words, Isaac can see the tension in her muscles that comes from hours of holding yourself too-stiffly. Cora is not unaffected.

“Come in,” they hear the Sheriff call from the living room. He sounds entirely _done_ with the entire pack. “Cora. Come on, move aside so they can come in.” He addresses the girl with familiarity that takes Isaac by surprise for a moment. Sometimes they forget that he’s the Sheriff and has been Deputy Stilinski longer than that. Of _course_ he would know the Hales, be familiar with all of them.

(Nobody mentions that once upon a time, Claudia Stilinski and Talia Hale had gone to high school together. It’s a small town. Everyone knows everyone and they leave it at that.)

(Cora used to see the Stilinskis at the store sometimes, or at the library. She’d always thought that their little boy was weird and talked too much. They had never spoken, but her mom had always had a kind word, a little knowing grin for Mrs. Stilinski that came from the companionship of _mothers_ while Deputy Stilinski had rolled his eyes and winked at Cora to make her laugh. It seems like a lifetime ago.)

“What’s wrong with him?” Allison repeats, like she really cared. Like she’d ever cared about Stiles, like he’d ever been more than Scott’s silly best friend. Then he realizes that a lot of the time, he had treated Stiles like that, too, and Isaac feels a sharp stab of something close to bitterness. They can’t catch a break – most of all, Stiles. Isaac has never been really close to him, but after the alpha pack, they’d hung out together. He was funny and quick-witted and he refused to take Isaac’s crap. And yeah, he’d given Stiles shit all the time, but that’s what he does. He acts that way with Scott, too.

Stiles was funny and quick-witted and refused to take Isaac’s crap, then he just _wasn’t_. When it was suddenly Isaac who accidentally called Melissa “mom,” Stiles didn’t complain anymore. When the obvious shot for a good pun was made, Stiles didn’t even notice. When group COD nights became _ScottandIsaac_ COD nights, Stiles didn’t say a word.

Isaac wonders how much of this was his fault.

Because that’s what you do, right? When something goes really wrong, you think back and you wonder how much of it is because of what you did. The thing is, part of this probably is Isaac’s fault because he’d seen it happening and he hadn’t done _anything_. He’d sat there and wondered why Stiles wasn’t eating the school lunch ( _dude, pizza is his favorite)_ , why suddenly there was a free controller ( _isn’t he busy or something?_ ), why there was more often than not an empty seat in certain classes and a vacant spot at lunch. And Stiles had given him that message from _Erica_ – and he didn’t fucking say a _thing_.

“He’s still asleep,” he hears, and Derek is walking down the stairs, looking hesitant when he meets Isaac’s eyes.

“An explanation would be good,” Allison says frostily (Isaac might have forgotten how much she didn’t like Derek.) and Derek manages a shaky snort. It’s not suddenly okay. It’s a start.

 


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys, I know updates have been a bit slow. It's just about finals week, so I'm sure you guys get it. I have a huge paper to write due in exactly a week, so this will probably be the last update until then, but I promise I'll get on the next chapter right after this paper is in, okay?
> 
> Also, just a note - I don't have a beta, and I don't have the patience or time to get one, so if there are mistakes, bear with me and let me know, or just wait for me to find them and fix them. Thank you guys so much for the support!.xx

Derek leads Isaac upstairs. He knows that the boy will follow, so he doesn’t bother making sure Isaac is keeping up. He just goes and leaves the door to Stiles’s room open. Isaac shuts it behind them.

“How have you been?” Derek asks. They’re the first words he’s actually spoken _to_ Isaac since the boy arrived. He hopes the uncertainty isn’t obvious in his voice. He is no longer Isaac’s alpha and Isaac is no longer his beta. He is only the man who made Isaac a monster and he takes no pride in it.

“Good,” he answers and Derek takes little comfort in the fact that Isaac sounds as unsure of himself as Derek feels. “Better.” Derek winces and Isaac shortly follows, realizing the unintended insult. “I mean, because there’s no one trying to kill us –“

“Really, Isaac – it’s fine,” Derek says and tries not to feel bitter. “That’s not why I came back. I didn’t want you to feel bad.”

Isaac sounds too quiet when he speaks again. “You came back for Stiles.”

Derek doesn’t have any excuse to give his pseudo little brother. (He was such a shit older brother in the first place; it’s no surprise that this relationship failed, too.) “You don’t need me,” he says instead. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t even like me, and I don’t blame you.”

“But Stiles does.” Isaac sounds puzzled.

“I don’t know,” he sighs after a minute of silence. “But I owe him.” That’s not the whole story and Isaac deserves more. “I can’t _not_ try to help. He’s _Stiles_.”

“I get it,” Isaac assures him softly. Derek sits on the edge of Stiles’s bed, watching the even rise and fall of his chest. “He’s done enough – he doesn’t deserve this, too.”

“It’s the Nemeton,” Derek says and Isaac stiffens. “I don’t know how much you know about it, but our best theory is that this is coming from the darkness Deaton talked about.”

“I remember,” Isaac says shortly and Derek thinks for the first time that maybe leaving wasn’t the best idea. Then Isaac sees Derek’s expression. “No, I mean – it’s not like, bad. Not with Allison and Scott, at least. But I feel really stupid for knowing about this and not noticing that there was something so wrong with Stiles.”

He looks down and Derek bites his lip before going for it and putting a hand on Isaac’s shoulder.  “Cora and I think he might have bonded with the Nemeton, magically. It’s something our mom –“ he swallows around the word. “- used to talk about. She was really big into magical theory, even if she couldn’t use magic itself.” He shrugs.

“Stiles would be proud you guys have Sherlocked it together without him,” Isaac says, giving him a tentative smile. Derek chuckles shortly and tries not to feel a pang of _ouch_ at the “Stiles _would_ ,” like he was dead.

“It was mostly Lydia and Cora,” Derek tells him. “They’re good at putting pieces together.” He turns his smile, warm and a little sad, to Stiles’s prone form. For once, he looks peaceful instead of haunted. Derek much prefers it. “Like he is, really. It’s like we need two of other people to put things together if we don’t have him, when he could have done it all by himself.”

“Why didn’t he tell anyone? Usually, if something’s wrong, he’s complaining about it at all hours of the day.”

It’s a question Derek can’t answer. “I don’t know,” he replies honestly. “Maybe we don’t know him as well as we thought.”

Isaac shrugs, but he still looks guilty. “I feel like we _should_. I mean, he’s no superhero or anything. But he’s done so much for all of us. Like, he didn’t like half of the pack but he still tried to save Erica and Boyd, still tried to help us with the alpha pack.” When he says “the pack” it almost makes Derek feel warm inside, before Erica and Boyd’s faces flash before his eyes. He shuts them tightly. Not his pack. Not anymore.

“He’s a little shit,” Derek says gruffly, then laughs. It’s a weak sound. “You’re right. He’s _human_ , but he still took the time to help us.” He looks up at Isaac and thinks he must be crazy for telling him what he’s about to. “He saved my life. I was paralyzed by the Kanima and he held me up in a fucking pool for two hours, treading water. And I thought it was just because I was the only way he was going to live otherwise, with the Kanima circling the water – but it _wasn’t_. God, it wasn’t. He would have saved me regardless. I couldn’t believe it.” And it’s hard to say – that this ridiculous boy saved his life. He almost chokes on the words (and there are so many words he can’t say) but he says them, because Stiles deserves that.

It’s a ridiculous thought, that this loud-mouthed, sarcastic _brat_ has won his respect and trust the way he has. Ridiculous, but it’s completely true. It had shocked Cora, and clearly hearing him talk like this about Stiles was shocking Isaac, too.

“He told his dad about my dad,” he says abruptly and Derek’s mouth shuts with a snap. “So I get it. I mean, it didn’t go anywhere – but he _told_. Jackson didn’t say a damn word even though he’d known for ages, but Stiles did. And he didn’t like me at all, but he still told me once that if I needed somewhere to go I could ‘crash at his place or something.’ Stiles is just _good_. He seems  a little average at first, but he’s so much more. I get it.”

Derek hangs his head. “I’m not going to leave,” he says – warns, really. “I’m not going to leave again. I am going to be here and I’m going to help him. Cora, too.”

Isaac nods. “One more thing, though. Before I go back downstairs.” Derek looks up and waits. “I just… Stiles said something. A couple months ago. Before it started getting _really_ bad.” He blanches and corrects himself. “Before we noticed how bad it was.” And Isaac shudders and Derek wonders what detail he was remembering. “He came up to me and told me that he’d talked to Erica.” Derek is mostly successful in keeping his face straight. He waits patiently. “He told me that she’d said to tell me that she was happy, and okay. I just… thought you might like to know. If this is something that is involved with the Nemeton.”

Derek swallows and nods. “Thanks,” he croaks and gets hit with a pang of missing her so hard his chest aches. She’d deserved much more than what he’d given her.

Isaac nods and gets up, heading to the door. Before he leaves, he glances back at Derek. “And I do like you, you know. I love you, man. Maybe it’s because we were pack, but I know you tried to take care of us. I _know_. Just because you left… it doesn’t mean anything. You’re still family. Just the fact that you tried makes you ten times better than my old family.”

He still can’t say the words _I love you_ to anyone but Cora. “Thank you.” Isaac gives him a hopeful-looking smile and leaves. He sighs heavily and looks over at Stiles’s sleeping face.

No, it’s not all better, but it’s the best start he’s been given recently.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, as an I'm-sorry I made an 8tracks mix of all the songs that inspire me for this fic. It's a pretty clashy mix - you have everywhere from instrumental to Marianas Trench. Also, just a note, the Marianas Trench song that inspired the title is in this playlist! So have a listen if you have some time. :)  
> http://8tracks.com/kandakicksass/make-me-skin-bones


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha, what research paper? I found some free time, so instead of working on my paper more, I wrote this. You're welcome. :P

Three days later, Stiles is no more responsive than he was the night he was found. John hasn’t had more than a collective eight hours of sleep in the past four nights, but he supposes that his son has slept enough for the both of them. It’s practically all Stiles does. If he’s not staring at the wall or at whoever is attempting to talk to him, he’s sleeping.

John has no more of an idea of what to do than before. There is nothing he can do to help his son, only wait for him to wake up on his own. His house has been invaded by werewolves, on top of everything else. Scott visits every day and he doesn’t think the Hale boy has even left the house once. Cora’s gone on two separate fast food runs, but Derek has been too jumpy to leave. Unless John forces him to get some rest, he doesn’t even think Derek sleeps except for cat naps in the chair now stationed permanently at Stiles’s bedside.

For the moment, the house is mockingly peaceful. Scott and Derek are sitting on the couch with Stiles propped up between them. His head is lolled to the side, resting on Scott’s shoulder, but the rest of him is pressed against Derek. He looks entirely uninterested in the TV, but then again, there isn’t much he does look interested. He tries not to stare, but it’s so much more evident when his son is right next to either of these two boys. Both Derek and Scott are at healthy weights and have plenty of muscle, but his once-lithe son looks skeletal next to them. His legs are rods, his thighs easily half the size of Derek’s. The position he’s in makes his collarbones jut out slightly – well, more than they usually do, because now that he’s noticing, it’s come to his attention that Stiles has been bonier than he used to be for a long time.

John remembers carrying Stiles downstairs that morning, and wishes he didn’t.  His son has always been a long, lanky mess, but now he’s so light. For as tall as he is, he should be so much heavier. John shouldn’t have been _able_ to carry him downstairs. He could see it in Derek’s eyes, when he’d cut himself off from offering to carry the boy himself earlier. His strength wasn’t necessary – the Sheriff could do it himself, and wasn’t that a blow to the gut?

John watches from the entrance to the living room as Lydia reads a thick, worn-looking text. He can see from her frustrated expression that she’s not getting anywhere. Her feet are curled under her in the armchair she’s sitting in and her hair is in a messy-looking bun on the top of her head. She looks exhausted.

(Everyone does. Everyone is.)

“He doing any better?” He asks this every few hours and the answer doesn’t change.

“Well… he’s watching TV!” Scott says brightly. Derek’s eyebrows shoot up; clearly, he’s being nice and not calling Scott on his bullshit today. Lydia isn’t so kind.

“He’s staring at Derek,” Lydia announces without looking up from her book. And he is. Stiles has been staring at Derek every time John has come into the room. He doesn’t ever really stop. If Derek enters his line of sight, he doesn’t look away.

Derek looks from Scott to Stiles, his expression softening somewhat. He reaches over and runs his hand through Stiles’s hair, who presses his cheek into Derek’s hand. John feels a twist in his stomach, and forces himself not to outwardly react.

Yeah, it’s difficult for him to see Derek Hale so close to his son. Once upon a time, he’d thought that he was a nice kid, then he’d accused him of murder. Derek makes him think of guilt and shame and pity, and it’s hard to look at him sometimes. (Cora is easier. He hasn’t accidentally further tormented her while she grieved. He hasn’t accused her of murdering her own sister.)

(Laura Hale was such a sweet girl.)

He _knows_ that Derek is doing okay now, knows that he should be relieved that he has someone so dedicated to keeping his son safe close at hand. The feelings of mistrust and uncertainty are residual and he can push them back, but the guilt he feels when he looks at him hasn’t gone away. He doesn’t think he will.

“What are we going to do if he doesn’t come out of this any time soon?” he asks quietly and feels even guiltier when Derek tenses. He doesn’t want to accept that possibility any more than the ex-alpha does, but it needs to be addressed.

“Then we talk to Deaton,” Scott says, and Lydia glares at him. (He’s so glad that his son has someone so loyal to him, but honestly, Derek was right when he said it wasn’t Stiles’s choice anymore.) “Don’t give me that look. He can write a doctor’s note or something, excuse him from school. Then we’ll take care of him until we figure something out, or he comes out of it on his own. I mean, it should be okay, right? As long as we feed him and do muscle exercises so his muscles don’t turn to mush or anything… it’ll be okay, right?”

John winces. _Feed him_? He knows it will have to be done, but it’s an awful reminder of how dependent Stiles is right now – like a baby. His beautiful, sad-looking baby boy.

“Speaking of food,” Derek says, voice brittle. (John understands. He doesn’t want to think about it, either.) “We should probably get some of that. Scott, could you get some applesauce, or yogurt? Something he can swallow easily?” He doesn’t even wait for a response, just starts rearranging Stiles so he’s leaning on Derek instead, looking up at him through long, doe-like eyelashes. John thinks that Derek’s protective instincts are probably the only reason John isn’t in full-on panic mode right now.

(He doesn’t like how he feels when Derek is around but he can’t breathe without knowing that he’s there to take care of his son. John won’t say that he needs the help – but anyone on Stiles’s side is more than welcome to stay.)

Derek looks up at him and flushes, probably embarrassed by the clarity of those protective instincts. If he were fawning over someone right in front of their father, he probably would be, too. John doesn’t tell Derek that he’s not doing anything wrong, but then Derek meets his eyes again and understanding passes between them. He knows anyway, and that’s good enough for John. 


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !Minor spoiler (?)!  
>  I just wanted to make it clear that the multiple POV will stop once Stiles awakens from his stupor like a catatonic sleeping beauty. Part of this was an awesome opportunity to show how the other characters are viewing this whole big mess, but it can't go on forever. Once Stiles is awake and mostly functional it will return to Stiles POV, with possible occasional interludes from Derek.

Allison rubs Scott’s back, frowning at Isaac from across the lunch table. Isaac looks just as bad as Scott, to be honest, who walks around half asleep most days. Whatever werewolf healing that’s stopped bags from developing under their eyes has done nothing to help the fatigue. In the past month, it hasn’t improved any. As the days wear on, her boys just look more and more exhausted.

“Dude,” Danny says, stabbing a piece of broccoli with his fork before deciding against it and force-feeding it to Ethan, who doesn’t seem to mind. “Maybe  you should get some sleep.” He looks worried – but then, they all do recently. Danny and the twins had been updated around week three of Stiles’s catatonia, and now the goalie spends a lot of time subtly checking up on all of them. “Just go home. Don’t even bother with lacrosse.”

“I wasn’t going to – I’m going to Stiles’s after school.” He yawns and Isaac and Allison trade looks with Danny and Ethan. “I can’t just ditch. Derek’s there all day; he needs a break. And Stiles needs me.” (No one says that most of the time Stiles doesn’t even register that he’s there. They don’t need to say it.)

“So do you,” Isaac says gently, reaching over to cover Scott’s hand with his. “I’ll go over after school instead. It’s definitely my turn.”

“I’ll go with him,” Allison agrees. “I’ve been meaning to go over anyway.” She’s never been particularly close friends with Stiles, but this whole thing has been a wakeup call. She can’t help but feel like she’s responsible. After all, she went into that bath, too. Her, Scott, and Stiles. She and Scott should have spent less time balancing their wacky three-way relationship (which is explicitly not talked about) and more time trying to balance _themselves_. She and Scott have done okay because they’ve been able to balance each other, but Stiles hasn’t had someone to do that for him. He’s been alone, and the guilt _crushes_ Allison. It’s a shitty reminder that she’s a shitty person.

For a minute, she slips – minutely – into those thoughts. The thoughts that maybe it really is all her fault. If only she’d done better, been _more_ than some pathetic human who can’t fix something as simple as a high school relationship. If only she’d paid attention when she thought “you know, Stiles isn’t looking too good. I wonder if he’s doing all right?”

Her smiles weren’t _enough_. She can physically feel Scott’s moods lift when he catches sight of her smile and somehow it didn’t really occur to her that just smiling at him wouldn’t do the same for Stiles. She should have reached out to him, been an actual friend – because she can admit that it’s not for lack of trying on Stiles’s part. He’s a friendly person, underneath a layer of snark and self-defensiveness developed from years of rejection, and he is _always_ the one seeking her out. Whenever they talk, it’s always initiated by Stiles. She realizes with a sinking feeling in her stomach that she can’t actually think of a single time when she’s spoken to Stiles first unless it was life-or-death.

When Scott agrees, it feels like a switch has been flipped. The day goes forward in fast-forward. She feels like the world is passing her by as she sleeps and before she knows it, she’s saying goodbye to an unsure looking Scott and climbing into her car to drive to Stiles’s. Isaac is silent in her passenger seat and she’s sure he’s thinking the same thing she is: what are they even doing?

Nobody greets them at the door; the sheriff is gone and Derek is probably too used to people coming and going.

Derek isn’t even downstairs when they come in, though Stiles is – he’s taking a nap on the couch, looking like a child. He’s curled into a ball wrapped around a pillow and it’s probably the most Stiles-like they’ve seen him in weeks.

Their attention is drawn to the stairs as Derek comes down, wiping his hands on his jeans. He gives them a semi-welcoming half smile – the most he manages nowadays (which is better than before) and comes forward to check that Stiles is still asleep.

“Hey,” he greets them. “Heard you come in. I was in the bathroom.” Which, she’d guessed. By the _no, really_? expression on Isaac’s face, he’s thinking about the same. Neither of them say it.

“Scott’s exhausted,” she says instead, and Derek gives her a nod. He’s short with her – he always is – but puts a visible effort into being friendly. She understands; their past isn’t exactly amiable and with her aunt…

(She’s always gotten the feeling that she doesn’t know the full story about what happened when Kate burnt Derek’s family alive. She doesn’t plan on asking.)

“I’ve been telling him to get some sleep for a week and a half,” Derek tells them. “I put up with it the first two weeks, but once I left the room for five minutes and came back to find Scott nearly asleep while he was supposed to be massaging Stiles’s legs…” He rolls his eyes.

“Hypocrite,” Isaac snorts and Derek looks at him, half-offended and half-alarmed. “Oh, don’t even. Bro, you and I both know you’re getting just as much if less sleep than Scott is.”

“I will have you know –“

“That you’ve been worse than a mother and her cubs?” Allison tries to hide a smile and from the increasingly sour look on Derek’s face, she’s failed. “I get it. I’m not judging. I’m just saying, don’t yell at Scott for something you’re doing, too.”

“You know,” Derek says dryly. “I don’t know why I ever worried about leaving you behind. Clearly you don’t have any respect for me in the first place.”

Isaac laughs and sits in one of the armchairs, making himself comfortable. “You love me and you know it,” he teases and Derek rolls his eyes again, moving forward to smack him upside the head, then again a little harder when Isaac just chuckled.

Allison sat down on the arm of Isaac’s chair, watching as Derek kneeled next to the couch, arranging himself to comfortably sit by Stiles’s head.

Derek tells them about Stiles’s progress – _he opened his mouth on his own when I went to feed him today_ – and Allison listens somewhat diligently. (She’s trying not to think about how Stiles’s thighs are thinner than hers even, and how angular his face looks, even with the more regular feeding he’s received in the past month.)

Then, she notices something else. The fondness in Derek’s eyes when he goes to brush limp brown strands of hair out of Stiles’s eyes. The way that his finger’s barely touch Stiles’s too-pale skin.

 _Oh_.

She looks at Isaac with surprise in her expression, but Isaac just cocks his head in confusion at her. She keeps her mouth shut and decides not to say anything; it’s not her place. Instead, she watches Derek take care of Stiles and wonders if maybe it’s not her job to fix what went wrong, even if she might have been part of the cause. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, because I had a friend say anything - does anyone want a chapter from Danny's point of view? I was trying to keep it to major characters that are (mostly) directly influenced, but I do like the idea of getting Danny's view of things, since he's kind of an outsider in all of this. Let me know, guys, and as always, thank you for reading! :)


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The general consensus was that everyone wanted a Danny chapter, so... Danny POV. Surprise! (Sort of.)  
> Also... double surprise!  
> Vague warnings are mostly just for Danny and Ethan getting a little heated, but that's it.

“Are we going to visit the magic kid?” Ethan asks while sprawled on Danny's couch, looking like he doesn’t particularly want to go anywhere.  Danny, for his part, is mostly trying not to roll his eyes at the “magic kid” bit. That’s what they’d called Stiles, the _magic kid_ , back when the twins were still answering to Deucalion, and it has never quite gone away. 

“No,” he answers, writing something down in his notebook for dual credit US History. His textbook is balanced precariously on his knee. “I don’t want to get in the way. We’re not really involved, so why bother them?”

“I thought you were friends with the kid. Aren’t you worried about him?” Ethan tosses a tennis ball in the air and watches it fall back down toward his face, catching it a scant inch from his eye.

Danny shrugs and sets his notes and book on the coffee table in front of the couch. “It’s not that I’m not friends with him, or that I’m not worried. Since you told me about the whole werewolf thing I’ve been worried about all of you – but what can I do?” And Ethan just _looks_ at him. Danny knows what he’s thinking, what everyone thinks – _oh, Danny, of course he’s the reasonable one._ He’s not always, though; his thoughts are as complicated as everyone else’s. But it’s a damn important thought: _what can he do_? The answer, of course, is nothing. “I’m not going to be able to help, and it’s not like I’m just leaving everything up in the wind. I asked Scott to keep me updated. It’s not like I don’t care. I keep to the cover story about him being really sick if someone asks and I try to help out when I can, but there’s not much I can do.”

Ethan shrugs. “Don’t get all mad, babe. I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I dunno – I was just wondering. Seems like you me, and Aiden are the only ones who aren’t running themselves ragged trying to get some time in watching the kid.”

“Stiles and I…” he shrugs. For a second, he looks a little lost. “We’re friends now, like, actual friends. I don’t want to see him like that. I would rather respect him and not be around to feed him like a baby than be there and then act weird when he needs someone who treats him normally.  Does that make sense?” Ethan nods. “I don’t even really understand what’s going on to affect him like this. I don’t want to go and pretend I understand something he won’t have a chance to explain himself.” He hangs his head. "I saw, Ethan. I  _knew_. I knew that something was wrong, at the very least that he wasn't eating. I mean, what kind of person notices that and doesn't say anything? I thought if I said anything, I would panic him. I didn't want to do anything that would cause him to do something drastic." He takes a deep breath and forces himself not to be swallowed by the guilt. Yes, he should have done something, but it isn't all his fault. They all should have been more attentive. "I just want to be able to do something right by him, and going over and presuming I know how to help him isn't it."

Ethan is quiet for a moment. “You’re so _nice_.” He sounds almost incredulous. Danny just smiles at him, reaching across the sofa to nudge his boyfriend’s thigh with his foot. “If I were you, I would be thinking about it all the time. Even if I don’t know the kid, I still feel bad for not being there when everyone else is.” (They don’t mention that half the time, Ethan doesn’t really feel welcome, and especially around Derek. They’ve run into him once, and Danny’s not eager to repeat the incident.)

To tell the truth, he does spend a lot of time thinking about it. This whole situation with Stiles has affected all of his friends, and he’s not immune to the darkness that follows them around. Scott is like a zombie half of the time, and Isaac and Allison split their time between looking concerned and guilty. Danny _hates_ how awful they feel, because it makes him feel like he should be guilty, too. (When Isaac and Allison volunteered to go over for the first time he’d nearly cheered, because for a moment – _a second_ – he’d seen them all take a much needed deep breath.)

Of all the people he sees on a regular basis, Lydia might actually be doing the worst. This is a girl who functions best under duress, who can solve any major problem in a matter of days. That Lydia is hardly recognizable as the same girl walking around with bags under her eyes, only partially concealed with makeup. There is a perpetual scowl on her face and even if her clothes and hair are as impeccable as always, the aura she’s giving off makes her appear unkempt. It makes her look harried and tired. Danny hardly recognizes her as the same girl who’d once been cornered by three boys and walked away with a subtle smirk and the half-terrified gazes of the boys behind her. Lydia is a powerhouse, but the past month and a half has spent all that energy. The last time he’d visited her outside of school, she hadn't even bothered to change out of her pajamas. He hates seeing her this way – hates seeing all of his friends in such pain.

(The visit was half due to personal worry and half because he still gets emails sometimes, asking if Lydia is okay, if she still thinks about him. If she knows how much he still thinks about her. Jackson knows better than to ask if Danny’s okay, and Danny doesn’t tell him either way. He just makes sure he's there to take care of the girl his best friend failed to.)

He shakes his head to clear it and leans in, pressing a soft kiss to Ethan’s even softer lips. “It’s going to be okay,” he whispers into Ethan’s mouth. “I have faith.”

“I’m sure you do,” Ethan chuckles, then captures Danny’s lower lip between his teeth and nibbles. A hint of fang worries at the soft skin.

“Fucking werewolves,” he huffs, but he’s grinning. “I don’t know how I didn’t pick up on it sooner, though. Seriously? You guys are not good at keeping secrets.”

“We’re not that bad,” Ethan scoffs, but Danny just laughs and slides into his lap. (He gets some shit from his dad sometimes about acting like “the girl,” but Danny’s secure enough to know that taking it up the ass doesn’t make him less of a man.

Also. His dad is missing out because taking it up the ass can be as awesome as giving it, so he can shut up.)

“Yeah, you are,” he disagrees, but he’s grinning. “I mean, really. When you come your eyes go red.” And Ethan flushes a bit, but he also looks pleased. Danny leans in, kissing him again and lets it deepen. When Ethan growls a little into his mouth, he shivers and thinks that no, he really doesn’t mind.

Ethan rolls them over, so he’s pressing Danny into the couch, hands roaming over the muscle of his torso and then his ass, skimming them grabbing, pressing them closer together. Danny gives his notes a glance and gives a mental _fuck it_ before really getting into it.

Then his phone rings.

They pull apart and Danny crawls out from under Ethan to grab at his phone, slapping at Ethan’s hand when it reaches for his belt. “Ignore it,” his boyfriend whines, but when Danny sees the message he’s received, he freezes and Ethan immediately stills with him.

_Stiles woke up Scott’s freaking out a bit but he told me to text you_

It’s from Allison. The second comes in rapid succession.

_Shit what do I do he’s crying and I think Derek’s having a brain aneurism_

_Should I go no one’s really paying attention to me being here I’m just standing here looking like an idiot._

Danny bites his lip, his hands shaking slightly. When they talked about the hypothetically texting about any changes... well, to be honest, he hadn't expected any. He doesn't know if he should be glad or even more concerned.  _Maybe you should probably go? Let Scott know and then maybe leave. Did you text Lydia?_

_Lydia right yeah I’ll text her. She’ll probably come over asap… can I come over to your place? I feel weird just leaving._

He looks over his shoulder at Ethan, who nods. He texts back an affirmative and takes a deep breath, settling again against Ethan’s body looking lost. “Well,” he says, wincing. “We don’t need to go over and visit anymore?”

Ethan nods, but they don’t move again for the ten or so minutes it takes for Allison to gather her things and drive over. They sit in the dark with their thoughts, and hope.


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles is awake.

“Derek?”

His voice is hoarse and his body is heavy. He feels like he’s been asleep for a very long time and is only just waking up. He half expects Derek, who looks like he’s about to have a heart attack, to be another hallucination, another trick of his brain. He watches warily as Derek comes forward and kneels next to his bed.

And _god_ , Derek looks beautiful. He always does, really, but this might be the first time he’s seen him mostly at ease in his surroundings. There might be bags under his eyes, but he’s clean-shaven and wearing colors. His shirt is a light blue, bordering on teal, and it brings out the green in his hazel eyes. He looks good, and it kind of breaks Stiles’s heart to see him looking so good with such a sad expression.

“Stiles?” He’s hesitant and hopeful sounding. Stiles thinks that he sees someone move in his peripheral vision, but he can't look away from Derek. He has priorities.

“Hi,” he croaks and tries to lift his arm to touch Derek’s cheek, to make sure he’s real. He makes it about halfway before he frowns at the weakness in his muscles.

(He’s felt weak for a long time, so he should be used to it. This is a different sort of weakness.)

Derek’s eyes are wide and so gorgeous. For once, he’s alone, the too-solid bodies of figments of his imagination absent, so when Derek takes his face in his strong hands and strokes over a cheekbone with one finger, Stiles doesn't feel like anyone is intruding on this private moment. It's a small relief. “No,” Derek whispers. “No, Stiles, come on. Don’t cry.”

He hadn’t realized that his cheeks were wet, that he was biting his lower lip so hard it stung. “I’m not,” he says, but Derek isn’t convinced. “When did you get back?” His voice breaks on the word ‘back.’ “I didn’t realize –“

“About seven weeks ago,” Derek tells him, and Stiles’s heart seems to skip a beat.

“N-no.” He shakes his head slightly in Derek’s grip. “I would have known if you’d been back for that long. I remember –“ A hazy memory of Derek’s panicked expression surfaces and he blanches. He feels so _weak_ , so tired. He meets Derek’s eyes, feeling very small.

(He is.)

“Derek, how long was I asleep? Everything seems weird, like a dream.” But it’s not a dream and it hasn’t been a dream and somewhere deep down, he knows it. As a matter of fact, his dreams are the only things he remembers clearly.

“About seven weeks,” Derek answers quietly and he clears his throat and tries not to look so vulnerable. Instead he looks like he’s going to vibrate out of his skin, or wolf out and just explode with emotion.  “Scott called me when he found you in your room, just lying on your bed. Cora and I drove back right away.”

Stiles closes his eyes and tries not to shake, but his breathing isn’t working right. “Seven weeks ago? That’s… a long time, Derek.”

He thinks Derek’s probably nodding, but the hands holding his face tremble like his body is.

“Derek, bro, are you –“ Scott stops in his tracks, and when Stiles opens his eyes and sees his heartbroken expression, something cracks a little. “Allison,” he calls over his shoulder, taking a shaky step forward. “Text Danny and let him know Stiles is awake.”

He comes forward, but by that time the look on Derek and Scott’s faces are too much. He’s lost the control he had over his limbs and his muscle – what’s left of it; it feels so brittle – tremble and he makes his sound in the back of his throat that he can’t describe. He tries to flinch away from Derek when the man instinctively cradles him closer, but Derek doesn’t let him get away. Scott closes in from the other side and they just hold him right there in the middle of his bed while he tries to take in these great shuddering breaths and ends up sobbing in confusion and fear.

He just doesn’t _get it_ , why Scott is here looking like he hasn’t slept in a month and why Derek is holding him so tight. He doesn’t get it and that’s his job: he gets things. He’s supposed to understand. “What’s going on?” he manages and it sounds too breathy. He coughs, tries to clear his throat and rubs furiously at his eyes.

Before they answer, Allison is in the doorway and she’s biting her lip looking scared and relieved and overwhelmed. (He can relate.) “I’m going to Danny’s, and I texted Lydia. She should be over soon.” She pauses, fidgety and uncomfortable. Her eyes are too honest. “I’m so glad you’re back, Stiles,” she tells him, and comes over to kiss him on one wet cheek. To her credit, she doesn’t flinch or automatically wipe her hand across her mouth.

“I’m not sure where I went,” he says, but it comes out _I’m not sure who I am_. That’s what he’s feeling, strung-out and lost. Ana-Erica and the not-fairies aren’t there but he still feels suffocated, still feels like he’s not grounded to the earth.

Everyone in the room freezes.

“Where I went,” he corrects quietly. His voice is still rough from disuse. “I meant… where I went.” He offers a pathetically empty grin. “Look at that. I rhymed.”

Allison’s returning smile is equally pathetic. He wants to give her a medal for not making a break for the door. He looks at his knees and tries to take a deep breath. “I’m going to Danny’s,” she repeats, and it’s probably a good thing. None of them can remember she’d said it in the first place.

Scott nods and Derek offers no goodbye, but Stiles isn’t surprised. Derek looks a little overwhelmed himself.

“Why was everyone here?” And when did three people become ‘everyone?’ For a second, it had just seemed so crowded. Derek winces, and Stiles feels even more out of place. He’d known Derek was opening up, thawing out a little, but this is unprecedented. He hates the emotion on Derek’s face because it’s not good. It’s vulnerability and pain and worry. It’s that look in his eyes that makes Stiles feel like it’s all his fault, that he’s caused those eyes to be so sad.

“It’s kind of hard for Derek to take care of you by himself,” Scott says quietly. Stiles almost forgot he was there. He looks back at him in confusion. Scott just shrugs and he just looks dull. His hair is limp and his eyes are dark and Stiles wonders if _he_ did that to him. “He’s living here, Stiles. He’s the one that’s been taking care of you for the past month and a half.”

Stiles turns back to look at Derek and for once his big mouth is running on empty. He doesn’t know what to say. Derek, for his part, looks a little embarrassed. It’s unsettling how he has to visibly attempt to hide how he’s feeling. “Cora’s staying here, too. And everyone comes over and helps, too.”

“The sheriff cleared out the guest room when Derek started sleeping on the couch, or by your bed.” Scott shrugs. “I guess we all kind of got used to it. It doesn’t seem weird anymore.”

Stiles is silent for a very long time. When the minute stretches, Derek and Scott both visibly start looking a little antsy. When he looks up again, they’re both hanging onto every potential word that could come out of his mouth. He feels like he’s broken the both of them.

(He hates himself for it.)

“I’m fine,” he says at last. “Thank you,” he adds, softer, and touches Derek’s arm, then yanks his arm away when he remembers that this is the man who happily _punched_ him before he left, who only started tolerating him over text within the past few months. He likes Derek, wants to be close, but that doesn’t mean shit on Derek’s end. (He’s so sick of being rejected.) “But I don’t need to be watched anymore. It was a fluke – something with the Nemeton. I’ll get it figured out, but I’m okay. Really.” Because they don’t know, they can’t know – he admitted it to Lydia, but she promised not to tell.

Scott and Derek trade glances and look back at him. Derek’s mouth is a hard line and Scott is crossing his arms.

Somehow, he gets the feeling that this isn’t going to be as easy to get out of as he thought. 


	25. Chapter 25

“Derek, maybe you should let me handle this,” Scott hedges, looking uncomfortable, but Stiles isn’t entirely willing to let him go. The minute Derek’s hand slips from his shoulder where it had been resting his body tenses and Derek’s eyes go from Stiles to Scott accusingly. He settles back against the wall behind Stiles’s bed, body a firm line against his own.

“Doesn’t look like it’s a good idea,” he grunts, but a hand is tracing a calming line up and down his shoulder to make his heart rate calm again. “Why don’t you tell us what’s going on, huh, Stiles?”

He’s proud of the firm set of his jaw. Lord knows he has practice telling Derek to fuck off. He might have feelings for him, but he’s not going to just give in. (Once upon a time, that was why he’d thought he and Derek would be good together. Derek needed someone to go up against, to make him think his shitty ideas through. Stiles wishes he still thought that he was worth that.) “Nothing,” he says after a pause. “Do you need to get your ears checked, bro? Nothing’s wrong. Just stress and this whole Nemeton thing is freaking me out a little.” He flushes and manages to squeak, “Seven weeks, though, really? That seems a little excessive –“

“Stiles,” Scott interrupts, eyebrows raising in disbelief. “You’re rambling.”

“First of all,” Derek says. “Don’t call me bro. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.” Stiles opens his mouth to crack a joke, to distract him. “Second of all – don’t _bullshit me, Stiles_.” He glares, irritated that Derek cut him off. “I was here the entire time, you remember that little tidbit?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Stiles asks with narrowing eyes, pulling away from his hand. He doesn’t pull his knee away from the point where it meets Derek’s legs, but mostly that’s because apparently seven weeks of catatonia and even longer months of little exercise and even less food have taken their toll on his muscles. “So you watched me drool for a few weeks, what are you getting at?”

Derek grits his teeth and Stiles is too tightly would to back down, to feel any shame for his defensiveness.

“Derek,” Scott says warningly. His voice is edged just an octave higher. “Guys, maybe you should calm down.”

“What am I _getting_ at?” Derek growls and Stiles’s heart is beating way too fast but he can’t back down. He just can’t. “I was here, trying to force you to pay attention to something, anything – I was the one feeding you and watching you and carrying you up and down those stairs. And you know what I noticed?” Scott says Derek’s name again, louder, a hint of alpha in his tone. Derek doesn’t even listen. (Scott is not Derek’s alpha, however much all of them just want to have their pack, their family again.)

Stiles is shaking, glaring and trying not to cry. He’s pretty sure that the wetness on his cheeks is from earlier. He hopes to god he’s not crying now. “And what’s that?” he asks, but he already knows. “That you’re an asshole on an ego trip?” And they’re harsh words, considering what all of Derek’s ego trips have resulted in. (Agony. Pain. Loss.)

But Derek seems to understand that his words are deflection, are a defense. He doesn’t get more or less angry – and he’s not even angry, really. Aggressive, yes. Highly strung, yes. Intense – definitely yes, but not anger. “I carried you and lifted you and supported your weight, and you know what? There was practically nothing there to support,” he hisses, and Stiles feels his stomach drop. He’d known it was coming, but it was still so hard to hear.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he snaps, shoulder jerking as he fought the urge to lash out.

“Still trying to bullshit me,” Derek says, cheeks flushing with frustration. “I can wrap my entire fucking hand around your leg, Stiles, and if that’s not telling I don’t know what is.”

“Would you stop being so overly dramatic?” Stiles finally pulls away from Derek completely, but Derek just comes after him and wraps a hand around his lower thigh as an example, pulling closer.

“God, Stiles,” he breathes, and Scott is talking behind them, panicky and too-fast as Stiles’s breathing goes out of control. “Why won’t you let anyone help you?”

“I don’t need your help!”  He wants to struggle more, but his body isn’t used to being so active so soon.

“Well Deaton thinks you definitely do, and so do the rest of us, for that matter,” Derek snaps and everything seems to stop.

Stiles blinks at him uncomprehendingly, shocked and suddenly more frightened than he’s ever been in his life. “I told her not to say anything.” His words, shaky and quiet, shock Derek out of the aggression and he pales, tension bleeding out. He goes slack. “I told Lydia not to say anything and I _told her_ not to say a word to Deaton!”

It’s clear by the look on Derek’s face that he knows he shouldn’t have said anything. It’s made even more obvious by the freaking out that Scott is doing behind them.

“Lydia didn’t tell us – we managed to piece it together by ourselves.” He pauses. “Deaton needed to know,” Derek says, softer, like it will appease him. He’s leaning against the wall like he doesn’t have the energy to sit up, which is honestly a laugh. “He was the only one we could think of who knew anything about the Nemeton – or at least enough to help us try and figure out what was wrong.”

“But nothing’s wrong!” Stiles yells at last, tension finally breaking. His face is hot and his hands are trembling. He can barely see straight. “I was figuring it out – I can figure it out on my own without you all trying to fix me and wasting all your time on me!” He slides of the bed and stands, swaying in place, but when Derek leans forward and goes to steady him, he starts screaming even louder. “ _Don’t touch me!”_ It horrifies him to know that Derek’s touched him, that Derek knows how much is wrong with him. Derek touched the angles and bones that make up his body and he's felt the darkness rolling under Stiles’s skin. “Where do you get off taking control of other people’s lives, you asshole? Don’t you fucking touch me!”

And Derek wrestles him to the ground, holding him tight, trying to stop his thrashing.

“You’re burning up,” Derek says, voice tight.

What Stiles wants to say is ‘no wonder,’ and yell and hit him. He does two of the three and makes these awful noises – screeches and sobs and screams that are higher than his normal tone but far harsher. He beats against Derek’s chest and grabs fistfuls of his clothing.

He manages to fight for an impressive twenty-two minutes of Derek shushing him, rocking him back and forth while Scott talked quietly in the corner, phone pressed to his ear like a lifeline. When Stiles gives up the fight against the muscular arms that keep him in place, he just goes limp. Derek smooths his hand over Stiles’s damp hair over and over again, holding him tight.

Stiles almost wishes that he was still laying around, wrapped obliviously in warped versions of the people that used to be their pack.


	26. Chapter 26

When Stiles wakes up again, someone new is in his room.  (He’s sensing a recurring theme.) This one, however, looks pissed – but not at him.

“Welcome back, Stiles,” Lydia says tersely, but she’s still glaring at Scott and Derek, who look quelled as they sit over by his desk. Well, mostly Scott looks quelled – Derek has his blank face on, showing no emotion apart from his eyes, which keep flickering to Stiles. “As I was just saying, I was rather displeased to get a text saying you were awake, only to arrive and find that you’re asleep again. Imagine my surprise when these two _Neanderthals_ managed to wear you out in the fifteen minutes it took for me to put on respectable clothes and head over.”

“It wasn’t our fault,” Scott argues weakly, but Lydia’s glare is enough to evaporate an ocean. Scott looks down and mumbles, “Derek did it.”

Derek glowers at him. “I didn’t –“ But he stops himself and winces. “I might have been a bit too aggressive. I kind of freaked out the minute he woke up and got a little too forward.” To his credit, he actually looks chagrined.

“What does that have to do with it?” Lydia asks him, unimpressed, and Derek rubs the back of his neck with one hand.

“He might have had a little bit of a breakdown,” Derek muttered, and when his eyes meets Stiles’s, he looks so ashamed and apologetic and Stiles can’t remember Derek _ever_ apologizing, but his eyes are telling Stiles he’s on the verge of it. “I went about it in a shitty way, but I didn’t realize he was going to panic.”

“Went about _what_?” And she’s back to looking like the white witch from Narnia.

“I asked him what happened,” Derek answers, and he’s starting to come off as a little pissed. Derek isn’t the sort of man that answers to high schoolers – or anyone, really. He deals with problems on his own and he hates asking for help. It makes it harder to watch as he continues. “And – shit, I didn’t even think about it. He tried to deflect, but I forced the issue, about how skinny he is. Then I mentioned Deaton and he went insane.”

Stiles is a silent observer, watching with a tightly shut mouth as Lydia groans and claps a hand over her eyes. “Stiles,” she says through gritted teeth. “I swear to god I didn’t say anything. I asked Scott to check up on you and when he found you unresponsive, he called Derek. I didn’t hear about anything until Derek was already freaking out and driving back from wherever he and Cora went.”

“He was calling Stiles!” Scott argued defensively. “I didn’t just _call_ him – I didn’t even know they were talking regularly. He was all freaked out because Stiles sent a text message but it didn’t look like him, so Derek was trying to get ahold of him and I picked up the phone.”

Lydia throws back a scathing remark and Stiles suddenly really wants out of the room. He doesn’t want to listen to this anymore. “Derek,” he says finally. He doesn’t spare a word for either of his other two friends. “I have to use the restroom, and I don’t think I can walk. Help me up?”

Derek is beside him in a heartbeat, letting Stiles slide an arm over his shoulders. As he thought, his legs are weak – he can hold himself up, but he feels as if one wrong step could send him tumbling to the floor. He’s going to have to build back the muscle in his legs before he’s even leaving the house. Derek gets him out of the room, and leads him into the bathroom. Once there, Stiles supports himself on the counter and glares at Derek.

“I don’t need your help from here on out, buddy,” he says, like his leaving needs the prompting. Derek grimaces.

“I – sorry. Habit. I was always terrified you’d fall and break something.”

Stiles is _mortified_. “Awesome. Just – awesome. You really had to be the one to help me piss?”

Derek looks plenty embarrassed for the both of them. “You could take care of that yourself,” he tells him awkwardly. “Motor memory or something – I just sort of held you up.”

And the alarming thought that Derek Hale has seen his cock makes him groan and lean against the counter, rubbing a hand over his face. “Jesus Christ, Derek,” he manages, his face heated and his body uncomfortable. “And you stayed? I mean, man, you can hardly tolerate me on a good day. I can’t imagine why you’d move into my house to take care of me, especially with… all that involved.”

Derek shrugs, relaxing a little, even though there’s still a tinge of pink high on his cheeks. “This may come as a shock to you, but I don’t _actually_ hate you, you know. I used to consider you pack. In some ways, I still do. I have… instincts.”

Stiles peeks at him through his fingers, and winces a little when he catches sight of his face in an old mirror hanging over Derek’s shoulder. His fingers barely cover any skin, so thin and brittle-looking that his eyes look huge and gaunt beside them. He lowers his hand and glares down at his feet. “What instincts?” he asks, but the question comes out flat, like a statement.

“Protective instincts,” Derek answers, and he looks a little constipated as he says it. Stiles feels a little overhelmed by the idea that Derek's spent a month and a half protecting him, wasted those seven weeks of his life trying to protect someone who can never be worthy of some sort of loyalty. 

(He knows, he  _knows_ , that he's being to hard on himself, that it's the darkness and the memory of Dan's voice in his ear telling him these things. He can't bring himself to believe it.)

Stiles closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Okay. Yeah, cool. We can talk about this later, but I wasn’t kidding – seriously, dude, I have to piss. So, take a sec?”

Derek blushes and steps out of the room, closing the door behind him. When Stiles is done, he raps on the counter, leaning awkwardly on it. At least he’s all tucked away and zipped, but it’s still awkward that Derek has to come in and practically pick him up to maneuver them out of the bathroom.

Instead of taking him back into his room, he leads Stiles downstairs. “I wanted to talk to you for a minute.”

“Clearly,” he responds, a little sourly, and when Derek removes his arms from around Stiles, he grasps his hands and helps him sink into the couch.

Stiles’s mouth goes dry. Their hands are still connected as Derek kneels in front of him, like it’s normal. “I’m sorry,” he tells him quietly. “For earlier. I was out of line, and when you’d just woken up…” He shakes his head, and Stiles squeezes his hands lightly. He’s almost testing to see if Derek will pull away. He doesn’t, just squeezes back.

“Derek,” he says, voice equally soft. “It’s fine.” And it’s really not, but he can’t bring himself to stay angry at Derek. It’s ridiculous, he knows, that this face – one that’s sneered at him and belittled him – is enough to calm his anger. He’s still upset, he still feels this rising thrum of panic underneath his skin when he thinks about Derek carrying him, Derek watching him and wrapping his large hands all the way around Stiles’s arms and ankles. The nightmare memory of Derek wrapping a hand around his thigh, knowing that he could fit the other hand and have his thumbs and middle fingers touch. The thought of talking about it and admitting just how messed up he is still makes him tense up under Derek’s hands.

But right now, Derek is kneeling in front of him and hanging his head like he’s failed him when Derek owes him _nothing_. When Stiles owes Derek his life, when Stiles barely deserves him to even be here with him, let alone the sole person devoting twenty-four hours to taking care of him.

“It’s fine,” he repeats.

“We’ve been so worried,” Derek admits lowly, and Stiles feels that splinter of guilt stab at him.

“I’m sorry,” he croaks, and Derek just shakes his head.

“Nothing to be sorry for, Stiles,” he sighs, looking up. His hazel eyes are searching out Stiles’s, but he doesn’t feel ready to meet his gaze. “We’re just – we’re going to help you get better. _I’m_ going to help you get better.”

Stiles doesn’t really believe him. He wants to, but it’s so hard to think that there’s anyway for him to get better. He can’t remember what it feels like without this weight on his lungs and heart and sanity.

He doesn’t say any of that. He says okay, and Derek’s tentative smile looks like the sun.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have the next chapter written, and I'll update it tomorrow. Yaaaaay road trip!

Surprisingly, the two members of the pack that are easiest to be around are Cora and Danny. Danny is self-explanatory; he’s friendly and calm. He doesn’t treat Stiles like a walking time bomb and it’s a breath of fresh air. Cora on the other hand isn’t overly friendly, but she’s never been overly friendly. She doesn’t treat him any differently aside from the familiarity that comes with getting to know each other better. She’s not the warmest of people with anyone but Derek, but he gets the occasional smile and the knowledge that another person is in his corner. Both are also blessedly quiet about whatever’s wrong with him. It’s enough.

He can’t talk about it. At least one person asks him about the darkness every night, and Deaton was more than displeased when Stiles insisted he was okay. As the days wear on, the friends around him get more and more frustrated with his lack of cooperation, but, another surprise, Derek is the one to keep himself in check to make sure he’s all right. Honestly, Stiles has no idea what he’d do without him.

He’s lost in his thoughts, so much so that he doesn’t notice that Scott is standing with his locker open until Stiles gets there and makes for the lock. He looks up and meets his friend’s gaze. Clearly, Scott is worried about Stiles’s first day back at school. He gave himself a week to gain back a bit of muscle, and when he was sure he could walk on his own, he insisted on going back, no matter how much Derek protested.

Scott is obviously on Derek’s side. However, before Scott can say anything, a girl stops by and puts a hand on Stiles’s shoulder. “Hey, glad you’re back,” she tells him warmly, and it’s kind of surprising that she clearly means it. “Are you feeling any better?”

Stiles almost forgets that he was supposed to be in the hospital with some mysterious illness. He manages to catch himself and smile weakly. “Yeah, I’m awesome,” he answers, and it’s as much of a lie as it has been every other time he’s said it. He realizes that there are at least ten different people standing around in the hall, listening in on this conversation.

The girl smiles at him, and it hits him with a shock down his spine that she’s the barista who had been working the first time he’d seen Ana. “Good,” she says. “You’ve looked sick for a while – I’m glad you finally got treatment for it.” She pauses. “You’re still looking pretty thin, though.” She flushes and makes a face. “Sorry, that was rude – you know what, I’m going to stop making an idiot of myself.”

“It’s fine,” he tells her, and it is. He can’t bring himself to get angry with her for her concern, no matter how much he suddenly wants to add another layer over his hoodie. “Totally fine. Thanks.” He smiles at her, as genuinely as he can, and then feels a little bad when she blushes a bit. He doesn’t like the feeling that he’s accidentally leading her on.

“Feel better,” she tells him, patting his shoulder, and leaves, but she casts a glance at him over her shoulder as she does so.

It’s as if the wall has broken. Three more people welcome him back and nearly everyone he runs into gives him a smile. It’s strange, being the focus of everyone’s attention, when he spent so long being a ghost in this school. Outside of the pack, he was just dopey, silly Stiles. The town clown. Sometimes he forgets that people do actually care.

Scott looks worried, but Stiles just gives him a wan smile. “Seriously, bro, I’m fine. Let’s just go to class, okay?” And they do. Halfway there Lydia covers his other flank, smirking at him and threatening everyone who dared to look at him with her eyes. “I’ve arranged for all your schoolwork,” she informs him. “You’ve kind of missed a lot, but it’s fine – I’ll help you get caught up, and Scott will touch absolutely none of it.”

“Hey!” Scott argues. “I can help with stuff.”

Lydia trains her raised eyebrow on Scott as she ushers Stiles into his first hour before her. Scott has first period on the other side of the school, and Lydia knows it. “You’re not in half of his classes,” she says flatly. Now shoo. You’re going to be late.” Scott checks the time and curses, dashing off in the opposite direction.

Lydia and Stiles share a look. “I know,” he sighs when Lydia’s gaze wears him down. “He’s my best friend, I get it.” She smirks, but it’s not as cruel as it had been a year ago.

Another three of his classmates welcome him back. Lydia pushes him toward one of the middle desks and seats him next to Isaac and behind Danny. She takes the seat next to Danny, preferring to be closer to the front.

“Hey, man,” Danny greets him, flashing him a dimpled smile. Not a word about his return, just a casual greeting, and Stiles smiles back.

“By the way,” Lydia says before class starts. “Did you remember your lunch?”

The grin that had been on Isaac’s face slips, and so does Stiles’s. Danny doesn’t respond either way; he has his head bent over his pre-calc homework. He’s not getting in the middle of it and Stiles doesn’t think he’s ever appreciated anything more.

He thinks of the single apple in his lunch box, hanging in his locker. “Of course I did,” he answers, but his words are clipped. Lydia doesn’t seem fazed. She’d known he’d be upset when she’d asked.

After a very long argument between her, Derek, his father, and himself, it was agreed he’d bring his own lunch to school. The thought of the school food ( _fatgreasebadno)_ had made him shudder, enough to make him puke. He’d refused to eat it, and his father and Lydia had been forced to step in as mediators between him and Derek. Derek, who was still panicking about the amount of food Stiles was eating now (not enough) and the amount he was sure he’d eat if left to his own devices (none at all). Derek, who spent every waking moment trying to protect him. Derek, who was witty and funny and so overwhelmingly _good_ that Stiles couldn’t help but want to be around him, even if Derek was the number one reminder of everything Stiles did wrong and every wrong thing done to him.

Lydia knows how hard this has been for him, so she doesn’t push it, but she does give him another stern look before turning back to the front just as the bell rings. Suddenly, the strangling welcomes he receives makes him want to hide himself away, to hide from their interested eyes.

He wants to text Derek and beg for a word of reassurance, but he can’t bring himself to pull out his phone. He’s weak enough; he won’t stoop to that level.

His teacher starts speaking, and the distraction is a blessed relief.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, I won't; I'll update now because I know I'll forget otherwise.

“Hiding out in the library? Stiles.”

The sad thing is? He’s not even surprised. With the shitty day he’s had, it is not a surprise at all that his nightmares are back to haunt him. It’s not even surprising that they’re not really nightmares.

Ana’s presence is comforting. He’s sitting on a couch in the back corner of the library, and she curls up next to him, laying her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry for freaking you out,” she tells him. “We just want what’s best for you – you know that, right? We love you.”

He lets out a deep breath. “Yeah. Of course.” He sounds bitter, but he leans toward her just a bit. He doesn’t think about how freaked out Derek would be if he knew that Stiles is still getting comfort from the not-pack, especially after they sent him spiraling into full-on catatonia. He can’t help it; they were practically designed to bring out this reaction.

He doesn’t know when Dan and Cat showed up, but Dan sits at his other side and Cat sprawls by his feet. “Are you feeling any better?” Cat asks him. The marks on her arms are on full display and they make him ache for the almost high feeling they used to give him. He’d picked it up after his mother died and only kept with it for a couple months, but now he wonders if his reluctantly throwing away his blade was only delaying the inevitable.

He doesn’t let himself think on it for too long. “Not really,” he answers, and against his better judgment, he shifts and wraps an arm around Ana’s thin shoulders. He used to think that she was so much smaller than he was, that she was so beautiful, but he’s starting to realize that he may generally be _bigger_ , with his longer limbs, but they might as well be the same size. “I want to – I’m trying, I really am. I’m trying, because I promised myself I would. Because I promised Derek.”

“I told you,” Ana murmurs into his shoulder. “I told you he would realize how beautiful you are.” And for a second, he lets himself imagine that she was right. What would his world be like if he had Derek? He imagines smiles and kisses and Derek’s arms around him, for no more reason that he wanted to be close.

He can feel Dan press closer to him, warm along his flank. “You have to be careful, though,” he’s told. “You can’t let it hurt you if he doesn’t… reciprocate. You know that. People like that in your life always have the gift of knowing just how to hurt you.”

Even though he knows Derek would never hurt him on purpose, Dan’s point is valid and his words entirely reasonable. “And you have to be able to handle it if he does,” Cat adds. “You have to be in control.”

“You’re right,” he admits, and Cat smiles up at him. Being around her gives him this ache to see the real Laura, to get to know her, to breathe in the warmth of protection and home and _alpha_ she gives off without trying. Technically, he knows that Scott is sort of his alpha – that he is in Scott’s pack and should look to him for all of those things. He can’t help the feeling that Laura would have been his alpha if things had gone differently. That they would all be happier and more stable and that things would have been perfect if just that had gone differently, if they’d had Laura.

The thought is a moot point. Just because he wishes things would be different doesn’t mean that they ever will.

“You’ve been away for a while,” he points out instead. “Where do you go when you’re not, you know, here? When I’m not hallucinating you.”

Ana chuckles softly against him. “We’re not hallucinations, Stiles. Flesh and blood? No. But we’re not hallucinations. We don’t go anywhere. We watch over you – you just can’t see us.”

“This is all because of the Nemeton,” he says. He wants the confirmation.

Cat shrugs. She doesn’t look to worried about it. “Sort of. To be fair, everything stems from the Nemeton. Life and magic and everything.” She doesn’t elaborate, and Stiles comes to the conclusion that she’s a lot more cryptic than the real Laura. He wonders if maybe Laura was like this when she was alive – cryptic and teasing and snarky. He thinks that it’s probably mostly the influence of his subconscious on her projection, and he wonders if maybe he should ask Derek just to be sure.

Then, it hits him that he hasn’t even mentioned dreaming about Laura. Since coming to the conclusion that his dreams were most likely more real than he thought, he’d kept all information about them even closer to himself. He hasn’t said another word about Erica and Boyd, and he definitely hasn’t said anything about Laura.

He thinks that he probably should, but how much can Derek really take? His dead betas were bad enough; can he really handle throwing his sister into the mix? He’d always managed to talk about her in the abstract, without detail or attachment, but Stiles knew better. Derek had been good at not showing his grief over Laura because he had practice not showing the grief over his entire family. Stiles, though – he knew what he was looking for, and he could read the pain in Derek’s eyes plainly, and he doesn’t want to see that anymore. He doesn’t want to be the one to put it there, not anymore.

“You should tell him,” Dan says softly. Ana and Cat nod in agreement with grim expressions. It’s kind of a relief that he doesn’t have to say things out loud with them – that he can think and brood and panic and none of it is something he has to put into words. They just _know_.

“He deserves to hear about how she’s doing,” Ana offers. “I’m sure he’ll feel better knowing that Erica and Boyd are with her, are happy.” And he doesn’t like hearing Ana speak about them so casually, using their names even though she’s only  a twisted representation of his friend, but she’s right. That might actually make Derek feel better about it – god knows it makes him feel better about it. They have a proper alpha and that proper alpha has two good betas.

(He knows that one day, when they’re all dead and living in the After, they will be a proper pack. It forces him to hold out hope.)

“Yeah,” he agrees, swallowing down the lump in his throat. “Of course you’re right.”

Ana’s smile is brilliant, but he watches Cat. For now, the _Laura_ he sees in the angles and curves of her face is enough to make him relax. He’s past the panic of seeing them, but the bigger problem is that he doesn’t really ever want them to leave.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yes, this is the point where Stiles starts actively trying to get better, but I don't want anyone to think it's going to be easy from here on out. Just a little warning. Also, (*sort of spoilery for 3x13*) I'm starting to think that maybe I went too easy on Stiles, Scott and Allison. Watching the new episode had me freaking out on their behalves! What did you guys think about it?  
> (I'm just super pleased/terrified that I got my scene with the Sheriff holding a hysteric Stiles...)

“We should do something tonight.” Scott’s brown eyes seeks his out from where he was seated upside down on the couch, his head dangling over the edge of the cushion. “You, me, Derek, and Cora. Since we’re all staying in, we should watch a movie or something. Play some COD.”

“Last time we played COD with Cora she’d kicked all three of our asses.” Stiles pauses. “Well, everyone kicked Derek’s ass. My point remains.” He’s picking at an orange that Scott had shoved into his hands twenty minutes prior. He doesn’t even have the outer layer of skin off.

“I heard that!” Derek calls from the guest room – his room – upstairs. “I’m not that bad.”

“You totally were,” Stiles snorts. Scott shrugs.

“He’d never played COD before. I can’t hold it against him that he was really bad.” Scott’s smile is so gentle and unassuming, but Stiles can only scowl at him. Derek of course is grinning when he comes downstairs, and Stiles glares, even as the beta runs a calming hand over his shoulder.

“I’ve played a bit. I’ve gotten better,” he insists, sitting next to Scott on the couch.

“No, you haven’t,” Cora calls in a flat tone from the kitchen, peeking her head out to raise an eyebrow at him. “Although I’ll give it to him, he has tried. Desperately. Can’t seem to handle all the buttons.”

Derek seems to have switched into big brother mode, because he suddenly looks almost sulky. “I can handle the buttons just fine.”

They bicker while Scott laughs, but Stiles just sits there listening. The scene is startlingly domestic. He’s not quite sure what to do with it – his best friend, goofing off like always. Cora in his kitchen, cooking dinner. Derek, laughing, playing the brother to his sister and Scott. Himself, the best friend. He thinks, sometimes, that he doesn’t belong here. That if he wasn’t here, they would all still be together. Scott, really, is the key that holds them together. He’s the reason they’re a pack.

It takes a lot of effort to remind himself that he has a place here. He _is_ the best friend, but he’s also the life saver, the thinker. He tells himself this firmly and takes a deep breath.

“Stiles?” Scott calls his name, and he comes out of it, offering his friend a half-smile. “You never said yes or no. We could invite Lydia, too, if you wanted –“

“It’s fine,” he says. “Don’t bother Lydia; she’s got a date with Aiden tonight and asked me nicely to not go into another coma so she can enjoy it.” He pauses. “I kind of want to just to spite her.” His joke works and Scott laughs. Even Derek, who purposefully keeps a poker face at all of his jokes, smiles a little. “But yeah, so long as I get to choose the movie.”

Cora comes in with a couple plates, setting them in front of Scott and Derek. Her expression is a warning in and of itself. “Don’t agree to his terms. We’ll be watching Moulin Rouge again in a heartbeat.” She heads back to grab the last two plates of dinner, but she gives him a sharp glare as she does so.

“I was thinking more Scott Pilgrim,” he says dryly and Scott fist pumps. They all know he’ll probably fall asleep fifteen minutes into the movie, but no one says it, which he greatly appreciates.

He can’t see the TV from his armchair, so he slowly rises and crosses the living room, settling in on the other side of Derek. Once upon a time, being this close to him would make him blush or _something_. He kind of wants that back, but he can’t bring himself to relax enough for any warm fuzzies. To be honest, he can’t even think of the last time he was properly aroused, which is hilarious in and of itself because he’s _Stiles_. It’s almost a rule that he’s a horny little shit, except that he’s not.

He looks over at Derek, who’s talking with Scott, and examines the lines of his face, the barely-there scruff that will probably be shaved again in the morning. It would be alarming if he didn’t know that Derek wasn’t always surly and angry. He used to be a friendly, if slightly immature kid, at least that was what he remembered. He hadn’t known Derek beyond passing glances from around town.

He knows him now, he thinks, curling up and pressing his feet against Derek’s thigh, trying to warm his cold toes.

(He’s _always_ cold. The one time he said something, a stressed Lydia had snapped at him about having no meat on his body to warm him, and he hadn’t said anything since.)

Derek, though – Derek is aware of everything, he’s starting to think, because his hands closes on top of Stiles’s toes, palm covering the top of his feet. He shivers at the warmth and burrows deeper into his jacket.

He knows Derek now, and he likes knowing him. This man came back to a town that had given him nothing but misery _for him_ , stayed _for him_. Cora comes back in, and she’d come back for him, too. He knows she probably didn’t go willingly; they didn’t really have any sort of relationship before they’d left. It was almost more impactful. He and Derek had become friends through their texting in the weeks that they’d been in touch, but he had barely spoken to Cora before she’d come back – and she’d come back anyway.

She sets his plate in front of him – some corn, baked beans, and about half a “proper” portion of meatloaf. There isn’t much there, and he looks up at her with a smile, willing her to feel his gratitude. As much as he _wants_ to get better, some things are harder than the others would like them to be. Cora never pushes him to eat because she understands how difficult is for him. If she’s cooking, she gives him smaller portions than anyone else would and she never says anything if he doesn’t finish everything he’d been given. He knows that Derek and the others are only trying to help, but it doesn’t change the fact that too much food makes him queasy.

Scott rolls off the couch, nearly hitting his head on the coffee table, and straightens, crawling over to put the DVD in the player. Stiles smiles at the familiar menu and spoons a few pieces of corn into his mouth, swallowing without counting them. It’s not much, and his progress isn’t as quick as even he would prefer, but at the moment, he feels relaxed. Even the looming thoughts of his upcoming visit to Deaton and check up with Mrs. McCall aren’t daunting him. His not-pack aren’t present, but he’s surrounded by his _real_ pack. He’s surrounded by people who are doing everything to help him and no, it’s not perfect, but it’s definitely a start. 


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 30! Can't even believe it!  
> Also, starting in this chapter is a warning for self-harm. It starts, physically, in this chapter, and is going to escalate. I just wanted readers to be aware of the new trigger in case it's a problem for them.

“Well, if this isn’t a slightly creepy setting for this conversation, I don’t know what is.”

“Tell me about it,” Stiles says quietly, feeling more and more apprehensive as the silence around him reigns.

“Are you talking to me, Mr. Stilinski, or to one of the quote-unquote ‘fairies’ that Miss Martin warned me about?” He jumps at the sound of Deaton’s voice, grimacing when he sees Deaton’s raised eyebrow. He’s sitting in a chair while the vet patches up a young retriever with a broken leg, and he doesn’t know whether to be glad that the awkward silence has broken or upset.

Cat, of course, looks less than impressed, but she nudges him when Deaton gives him another look. “I know they’re not fairies,” he replies, and it’s not his fault if he sounds a little irritated. Every word out of the man’s mouth is either cryptic or condescending. Even if Stiles knows perfectly aware that the vet is on their (Scott’s) side, it still feels like sandpaper on his already rough nerves to be talked down to like he was an idiot. “I just don’t know what they are. It’s not like I spend a lot of time hallucinating.”

“I don’t think they’re quite hallucinations,” Deaton says thoughtfully, as Cat hisses in his ear that they’re not figments of his imagination. He glances up at her affronted expression, but the reason he’d wanted her there works like magic. Even if she looks huffy, it wis still Laura’s face. He takes a deep breath, the reminder calming him somewhat. “Which of them are here? Miss Martin told me there were three.” Stiles has to firmly remind himself that he gave Lydia permission to give Deaton the details, since Derek and Scott had already told him that something was wrong. He looks up at Cat and lets a little more tension fade from his shoulders.

“Only Cat,” he answers slowly. “She’s… new.”

“Miss Martin informed me.” Deaton’s nodding, finishing up with the animal on his table. The dog makes a soft whuffling sound, but lets Deaton carry him back to his carrier without further complaint. “Now,” he says when he comes back in, pulling his gloves off. “Before we get further into that – I wanted to start off with the reason you’re here.” He crosses his arms, his expression blank. “What happened that drove you into a catatonic state? Even with other cases similar to yours, catatonia is very rare. It’s usually a reaction to something traumatic.”

Stiles looks down at his fingers, tangled in his lap. “I had a dream,” he grits out. “About the Nemeton.” He doesn’t want to say more than that, but Deaton is waiting expectantly and the memory of Derek’s desperate face is in his mind. “They were in my dreams,” he says quietly. “Derek’s two betas that were killed by the alpha pack, and Derek’s sister Laura.”

“Not your mother?” Deaton asks, eyebrow raising. “If anyone would visit you through the Nemeton, I would have thought it would be her.”

Deaton has an extraordinary talent of saying exactly the wrong thing, and that was it. All the tension in his muscles begs him to flee, but Cat runs her nails down the back of his neck. They dig in, making him wince and shift away, but it clears his head. A flood of gratitude makes him look up at her, but she’s watching Deaton pointedly. “I haven’t really thought about it,” he forces himself to say, even though he doesn’t want to talk about this anymore, not to him. Not that he really did in the first place, but he’s having to dig his own nails into his thighs to remind himself that there was a reason. “Look, my point is that I don’t think they’re just dreams. I’ve had these dreams nearly every night, but the first night Laura showed up, she told me some things.”

Deaton’s eyebrow is going to fly off his head if it raises any higher. “I’m getting the impression you found that those things were backed by research.”

He nods. “Everything Laura told me was new information, but it was all right. It was all true. And then I realized that the fairies-that-aren’t-fairies, they looked like Erica, Boyd, and Laura.” He shifts. “That’s why I freaked out. That’s it. I’m fine – it was just a huge shock. I had already had a panic attack.”

Deaton walked around his table and faced Stiles, leaning against it. “Catatonia doesn’t come on out of nowhere like that, Stiles.”

“I’m fine,” he insists, feeling more and more out of his comfort zone as each minute passes. He wishes his comfort zone wasn’t so impossible to find nowadays. He wishes a lot of things.

“So, which one does this Cat represent?” Deaton asks. “If they look like the dead that visit you through the Nemeton.” He hates the way Deaton calls them _the dead_ , like they’re any less people.

“Laura,” he answers, and Cat’s hand is on his shoulder, nails digging into his shoulder.

“And why is she the only one here?” Deaton shifted his weight. “I was under the impression that they all came to you together.”

“They do, usually,” he says, shifting uncomfortably. It feels so _personal_ to explain this, to give his reasoning. “But I asked Cat to come, just Cat. And maybe they’re Nemeton-related or maybe I’m just crazy, but they all did as I wanted.”

“Why did you ask her to come?”

He winces, giving up on hope that he would be leaving without giving some answers. His fingers are locked together and he wrings them, hoping the pain of twisting them too harshly will help focus him. “She looks like Laura,” he tells him weakly and Deaton stills – just for a second. If he weren’t so aware of everything around him, he wouldn’t even have noticed. “And Laura is…” He takes a shaky breath. “She’s pretty good at calming me down.” He looks down and adds softly, “It’s weird, because I didn’t know her when she was alive. But I really like her. It's like... she feels right. Like the alpha that _should_ have been.”

Deaton’s voice is contemplative, but sympathetic. “So you asked Cat to come because she reminds you of Laura.” Stiles nods and he can practically feel the man’s frown as he comes forward to kneel in front of him because Stiles won’t look up at him. “Stiles, this isn’t healthy,” he says gently. Stiles’s face twists.

“That’s what Erica said. And Laura.” Boyd had never said the words, but he made it quite clear what he thought. He’d once wrapped his entire hand around Stiles’s forearm and given him the deepest stare Stiles had ever received. Stiles had looked down at his feet in shame.

Deaton nods and doesn’t press the issue. Instead, he says, “I think you should tell me what Laura told you the first night you saw her.”


	31. Chapter 31

“I can’t ask this of them. Of any of them!”

He knows deep down that he deserves the look Laura is giving him, that Derek would look at him the same way. That Lydia and Scott and his dad would all look at him _exactly the same._

“You’ve got to stop talking like that,” Erica says quietly into his ear. She has her arms wrapped around him because she’s the most tactile of the three of them, but Boyd is sitting closer than normal and every now and again Laura comes forward only to growl and back away again. She’s too upset for close contact. Instead, she paces, and stops to glare at him every time he refuses to see reason.

“Just pick someone,” Laura demands, and Stiles feels like he knows her that much better – this is familiar. This is that good old Hale attitude and he welcomes it. “It doesn’t even need to be a final choice. Just someone you could talk to about it.”

“Well, I’m not going to talk to anyone about it, so moot point,” he shoots back and she huffs. “I don’t want them to know, Laura. How bad it is, I mean – I can still convince them that I’m okay. Deaton promised not to tell them any details other than what they already know.”

“And you think they’ll really go for that?” Laura asks, exasperated.

“They know too much already,” Boyd says, matter-of-fact. “You’re not going to be able to convince them that you’re fine. You can’t just see people that aren’t there and just be okay.” He sounds so damn reasonable that Stiles’s own voice of reason is begging him to listen.

(Stiles is very good at silencing that voice.)

“They do not know too much,” he replies hotly, but Erica digs her nails into his arm, silently telling him to stop being a little shit. “Look,” he says, calmer. “I’ll just tell them that whatever little coma I was in fixed it.”

“Yeah, and when you don’t gain weight back?” Erica asks, and he stiffens. “Don’t even with me, Stiles. You can’t lie to me. You were shit at lying to me when I was alive and you’re shit at it now. Just accept that this is out of your control. They’re not just going to let it lie.” And the thing is, he knows she’s right. They won’t let it lie, and it’s going to take a lot of convincing to make them think that he’s getting better. He can’t even convince himself that he’s getting better anymore. It’s becoming a problem.

“I can’t ask them to share this with me,” he tells her softly, willing her to listen to him. To _really_ listen. “Because they would do it, they would let me pull them into this. Any one of them would let me put this darkness in their hearts, and I can’t do it.”

“They’ll _want_ to do this,” Laura says, and her voice is surprisingly soft for how frustrated she’d been only a minute ago. “They want to help you. All of them. Isn’t there anyone? It’s to help you, and it will bring you closer to the pack. It’s not supposed to be a bad thing, Stiles.”

“Who do you want me to anchor to?” he asks at last, looking up with an expression he knows is too raw. Too open. “Derek? Because he might agree to it but I could never ask him to add more of this feeling on top of the pain and guilt he already has.” Laura opens her mouth, but Stiles barrels over her. “Scott? He’s already got darkness of his own, and he’s anchored to Allison, I know it. Isaac? I think he’s part of Allison and Scott’s anchor, and even if he would do it, I just don’t know him well enough. We’re not close enough for me to be comfortable being that close. Lydia?” His voice cracks on her name. “She’s a banshee – her job is _literally_ to seek out death. Why should I give her something that will make her feel even closer to it? Because that’s what it feels like.”

And he realizes for the first time what the undefinable feeling in his chest had been all this time. It had felt like _death_ , wrapped around his heart like a vice.

“And everyone else,” he says, sounding choked. “Is _dead_. You, all three of you, are dead. Why do you think it's such a gift, when I can't even use it? I'm terrified to use my _spark_. I feel like using it will just completely swallow me.” And he curls up just a little bit more, his throat tightening and his eyes blurring with tears.  He wipes furiously at his eyes. He needs to be able to see them, even if Erica looks heartbroken and Laura’s expression is one of pity and sympathy. “Derek doesn’t even know about you,” he whispers. “I should tell him.”

Laura doesn’t call him on his blatant attempt to change the subject. “Then tell him,” she allows him in a gentle tone. He’ll give it to her; she hasn’t seemed bitter or even really sad at the mention of either of her siblings.

“I will,” he says quietly, wiping the tears that had made it to his cheeks away. She smiles at him and places a hand on his cheek. Their eyes meet.

“Stiles, please talk to him,” she says, and he is suddenly struck by how lucky he is to have women like Laura in his life. Her, Erica, Lydia – he might not have his mother (and his heart aches over it every single day) – but he would be a mess without the women he does have. He _needs_ them. “If you won’t talk to any of the others, talk to my brother.”

He looks up at her, and he can see his face reflected in her hazel eyes. His own eyes look huge, sunken, and he understands why they’re insisting that he won’t be able to convince any of them he’s okay. He looks sick, so _sick_. He feels this part of him shrivel just a bit more – _worthlessuglyimpossible_ – and tries to stamp it down, out of existence. He doesn’t know if he’s successful, but he’s able to focus back in on Laura.

“I’ll talk to him.” He doesn’t specify what he’ll talk to him about, but it makes the sharpness of her worry in her features soften, and she nods. The intensity in her eyes clears just the slightest bit, but she is a Hale through and through – her gaze is always intense.

“Good,” she says, that little smile on her lips that tells him she’s calm again, content. She is a person who is always smiling, her default setting happy, and he wishes again, _fervently_ , that he could have known her when she was alive. When she and Derek and Cora were all just innocent children in a family that loved them.

It doesn’t matter. He might not be worth their love, but he thinks that he just might love them enough to make up for it. 


	32. Chapter 32

Stiles _knew_ that this was a bad idea.

Still, he can’t take the words back, or ask Derek to forget what he said. He can’t ask Derek to forgive him for bringing that expression to his face. He’d _known_.

“What?” Derek’s voice is croaky and devastated, his wide hazel eyes not wavering from Stiles’s.

Stiles wants to look away, but he can’t. Derek looks so delicate, like he needs Stiles to be there but at the same time, he looks so heartbroken that Stiles thinks maybe Derek would prefer to be alone. “I didn’t know whether to tell you or not – I didn’t want to hurt you or anything like that,” he stammers. “And I only first saw her _just_ before I went catatonic. I didn’t know before that.”

“It’s still been a month, Stiles,” he says, and he doesn’t sound mad, but the pain in his expression is enough. (Stiles privately thinks he would prefer Derek to be angry. He deserves it.) “And you didn’t tell me.”

Stiles tries to make himself smaller. “She didn’t know whether I should or not,” he says quietly. He sounds weak, and he hates himself for it. “I didn’t feel right saying anything unless she was okay with it.” And it’s not what she wanted him to talk to Derek about, no. He’s starting to think that maybe he should have gone with what she wanted him to. Derek is quiet, just staring at him with that disbelief, and for the first time Stiles is scared of him, of how he’ll react. He doesn’t think he can live without Derek, not after knowing what it’s like to have him so close.

“She’s my sister,” Derek says, and his voice is raising in volume. “She’s my _sister_! Stiles, you should have told me!”

With his voice, Stiles’s tension rises. His body doesn’t feel like it can take the strain. He goes automatically on the defensive. “It’s not like you can do anything about it. You can’t talk to her.” But a little voice in the back of his head tells him that maybe, if they bonded – if he accepted Derek as an anchor, he’d be able to. Stiles vehemently shoves the thought out of his head.

“I still deserve to know that _you_ can!” Derek stands, his muscles tensed to leave. (And never come back, the traitorous voice whispers sorrowfully. It sounds like Dan.) “God, Stiles, it’s been a year and a half! Do you even know what it’s been like? What next, are you going to start waking up with my mother’s cookie recipes?”

“Might as well,” he says hotly, but his eyes are shining with tears and his lower lip is trembling slightly. (He never used to cry this easily.) “It’s not like I’ve been getting any of _my_ mother’s. It’s not like this _gift_ is doing me any favors!”

And Derek is both sympathetic and angry. They both know that Derek doesn’t have very control over his mouth when he’s angry. “At least you _have it_. You can speak with them and you’re whining about it! You can see Erica and Boyd, and _my sister_ –“

And then he cuts off, nostrils flaring, realizing what he just said.

Stiles _knows_ that he doesn’t mean it, but it doesn’t help the fact that right now, he’s hurt. He feels victimized and guilty and awful. “Stiles,” Derek says, and he still sounds frustrated, but it’s softer. He stands, backing away. He runs a hand through his thick hair. “I’m going to go cool off.” And Stiles nods, because they both need it, but the moment he’s out of the room, he lets out a scream.

Derek must have heard it, because it was the loudest sound Stiles has made in months. It rattles the pictures sitting on a shelf nearby, makes his throat feel raw. It’s a _howl_. He feels like he’s going to break, shatter into pieces. There is something wrong, too much and it builds until he feels like he’s going to burst with it. He reaches out to slam his fist into the wooden coffee table.

Derek, from what Stiles can tell, hadn’t even made it to the door only to rush back. He freezes in the doorway, shocked, as Stiles trembles. A shaking hand reaches up to pluck a piece of wood off of his shirt. He looks down at it, his breathing too fast, then at the room around him. It was covered in pieces of splintered wood. The largest part of the coffee table that made it is a leg, which topples over onto its side in a nest of splinters.

( _nononobadwrongmagic_ )

Unharmed, Stiles can look at the room for barely a minute before bursting into tears. He pulls his thin limbs up to protect himself, curling into a ball. He’s shaking like a leaf and when Derek comes forward, he’s scared enough that he doesn’t say a word, just reaches for him. He doesn’t care that he was upset with him not two minutes ago. Derek pulls him into his lap, and yeah, it’s weird, but Stiles needs it. He just curls up and lets Derek surround him, hold him tight while he sobs, frightened and overwhelmed.

He doesn’t realize he’s speaking until Derek starts shushing him, rubbing a large hand up and down Stiles’s spine.

 _“I don’t want it_ ,” he hears, between great, gasping breaths. It’s his voice, but he doesn’t realize it until Derek puts a gentle hand on the back of his neck and pushes his face into Derek’s neck. He takes a breath, inhaling _Derek_. He smells of wood and musk and peppermint, only faintly, in a dizzy, confusing mix.

Strangely – impossibly – some of the magic that had built in his body, that had lashed out and destroyed the table, drains a little bit. Everywhere his skin touches Derek’s, the pain and wonder and _too much_ leeches away until he slumps, exhausted, in the man’s arms. He doesn't even think about it, just glad that the fire in his veins is gone.

“You’re going to be okay,” Derek is whispering into his hair. “I’m so sorry, you’re going to be alright. It’s going to be fine.”

Stiles manages to control the sobs, but he cries silently into Derek’s neck instead, not even bothering to hold on. He can’t remember when he started trusting Derek so much that he knows instinctively that he won’t _have_ to hold on, that he knows Derek will keep him upright.  

Behind him, Ana, Dan, and Cat are looming over their entwined bodies, hands rubbing Stiles’s shoulders and whispering into his ear about how good he is, about how everything will be okay. He only cares for the voice that is still murmuring apologies, thick and gruff, like Derek is on the edge of tears, too. He doesn’t say it’s okay, but he lets Derek rock him into a state of calm. He feels half asleep, and he lets Derek carry him upstairs, too. He only faintly remembers being tucked into bed, and grabbing a strong hand and asking it to stay. 


	33. Chapter 33

“How are you feeling, son?”

Stiles is feeling… not okay. But he doesn’t say anything, just curls tighter in a ball on his side. He hears his father sigh, feels him lay a hand on Stiles’s arm and rub gently. It’s comforting, but Stiles chooses not to acknowledge it. He doesn’t have the energy to move.

“Scott called and told me you didn’t stay for lacrosse practice.”

Stiles shrugs, but the movement is so small it’s barely recognizable.

“He said you’d come to watch practice, so you could go get frozen yoghurt with them and the girls after.”

Stiles lets out a sigh, and he feels it down to his toe. “I wasn’t feeling up to it. I just wanted to sleep.” The words were pointed and rough. He tightens the ball that is his body and buries his head in his knees. Their sharp angles are less than comfortable against the equally sharp bones of his face, but he feels better wrapped up. A smaller target, less of a person.

“Is this about what happened with the table?” His father’s voice is hesitant, quiet. He doesn’t want to bring it up. He’s not mad about it. (Stiles is guilty about it anyway.)

“I’m just tired dad,” and his words are clipped, his tone darker than he intended. “I just want to sleep for a bit.”

He watches out of the corner of his eye as his father holds his hands up defensively. “All right. Sorry to bother you.”

He wanted to call him back, to apologize, but he doesn’t. He waits until the door is shut, then turns back to the wall and watches Ana as she seemingly materializes out from the wall. Her lips are pulled into a smile.

She’s wearing a pair of leggings that call attention to how thin her legs are, and a flowing blue shirt in a silky material. She looks like an angel, with her halo of pale curls and bright chocolate eyes. She is _beautiful_ , and Stiles missed her. He smiles up at her, a weak, barely-there smile. She doesn’t begrudge him the lack of energy. She just smiles back, and he moves back so she can fit herself next to him under the blanket. She laces her left hand with his right, facing him.

“Do you want me to go, too?” she asks needlessly. She’s already in bed with him.

“Nah,” he answers, and shuffles just a bit closer. He’s so _cold_  - but he’s always cold. He wears thick socks and two shirts and often times, sweats over whatever pants he happens to be wearing. He can layer it all on without breaking a sweat. “Where’s Dan and Cat?”

“Do you want them to be here?” Ana asks, curiously, and like he’d summoned them, the two melt from the walls with deceptively calm smiles. He’s relieved to see them and doesn’t know why.

Dan walks around and fits himself to Stiles’s back while Cat curls at their feet. He wonders, vaguely, if he should just forget the aliases. Call Ana Erica, call Dan Boyd.

But Dan-Boyd is warm, and he shudders at the heat. He marvels, momentarily, at the power of his mind. He knows that they’re not technically there, but he _feels_ them.

(It seems like a hallucination. He doesn’t care. He needs them.)

“Are you still angry at us?” Cat-Laura asks. Her head his pillowed on his shin. It can’t be comfortable, but she doesn’t move. “Like you were before you took your nice little… nap?”

She means the night he had the panic attack. “No,” he answers after a beat. “You’re not real. I don’t see the point in it. I wasn’t mad at you that night anyway.” He makes a face. “I was just… freaked out.”

“But you’re mad at your dad,” Ana says, matter-of-fact. “You snapped at him pretty harshly. He was only trying to help.”

“You made him look so sad,” Dan whispers against the back of his head.

A pang of guilt hits him. “I just wanted him to go away.” He presses his head forward, resting his forehead against Ana’s. “I don’t want him to see me like this.” But he’s never-changing. He doesn’t gain back weight because he can’t bring himself to eat enough. He feels dark and heavy and the death in his chest doesn’t go away. He tries, but it’s slow-going. It’s discouraging. Dan sometimes tells him that he should give up, that maybe he wasn’t meant to get better.

Sometimes, he things that Dan might be right, but then he’ll dream about Erica and her tears are like a phoenix’s. She’ll cry for him, and it will give him strength. He’ll dream about Erica or he’ll spend time with Derek. Derek’s warmth is a balm for his aches. Laura will comfort him, take care of him, reassure him. Lydia will sit with him and understand, will do everything she can to support him. Boyd will be his silent guardian, his father a well of endless love. Isaac and Allison and Danny – his _pack_. They are all there for him.

He burns with the love he feels for his pack. “It’ll be okay,” he says. “I’ll apologize. I was too snappy.” And Ana smiles at him, like she’s proud of him – because that’s how she does it. She encourages him in so many ways he can’t tell what’s good and what’s not.

“Stiles?” His dad knocks on the door, but doesn’t come in. He sounds hesitant, and Stiles winces.

“Yeah?” he answers. There’s a moment of silence and Stiles almost thinks that his father is just checking up on him.

“Derek just got home with dinner,” he says instead, and Stiles has to take a second to remember that yes, Derek had gone out. He doesn’t do so very often, but he’d come in and told Stiles that he was going to go to the store. He’d mused Stiles’s hair lightly and glanced back at him before he left the room. “You want to come down?”

“Stiles –“ Ana says, voice low, as his stomach makes a hideous sound. He doesn’t _want_ it, but he doesn’t want to disappoint his dad again. He doesn’t want to disappoint himself. “Stiles.”

He coughs, clears his throat, and answers. “I’m not really hungry, Dad.”

He thinks that’ll be it, and he’s both disappointed in himself and relieved, but then his dad speaks again. “Stiles,” he calls through the door. “Please. Come down for dinner. I’m not asking you to eat an entire feast.”

“Stiles,” Ana repeats, eyes narrowing. “Come back to bed.” He’s pulling himself up, answering his father’s call on autopilot. He takes a minute, looks back at her, then at his bedroom door.

“Stiles?” That’s Derek’s voice. He takes a deep breath, and ignores Ana-Erica calling his name.

“I’m coming,” he answers, and opens the door to meet them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 700 kudos... thank you guys so much! I never thought this story would be read at all. I really appreciate everyone's support. You guys are the best.


	34. Chapter 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allison clears things up on her end.

“How’s your paper coming?”

Allison’s voice is very clear in the otherwise silent library, and so is her hesitant smile. She’s standing in front of the chair across from him, and he smiles back, gesturing for her to sit down. “Pretty good,” he answers once she’s seated. “I had to change my topic twice because I didn’t like it, but it’s coming along.”

She dimples, relieved at his friendliness, like she’d expected something else. “What are you doing? It’s for Mrs. Belle’s class, right?” He nods, and she continues. “I was going to do a persuasion about equality, but I changed it to a definition paper about strength.”

“It’s an analysis on the change from physical records to digital music,” he answers with a smile. “I was originally going to bring back the tried-and-true history of male circumcision, but Belle wasn’t as amused as Finstock was.”

“Scott told me about that,” Allison laughs. “How did that even happen, anyway? Finstock teaches _econ_.”

He blushes a bit and looks back down at the paper he’s writing in a black notebook. “I couldn’t remember anything about the last short answer. So. It just sort of happened?” She nods, still grinning, but growing ever dimmer as they continue to sit there. He waits for her to say something, and when she doesn’t, he sets his pen down and sighs. “You don’t have to force yourself to hang out with me, you know.” He doesn’t say it meanly or even particularly loudly, but she still jumps like he yelled at her.

“I’m not,” she says at once, without hesitation, but then she glances down at her lap and makes a face.

“Allison,” he says gently, without malice or even hurt. “It’s okay, really. It means a lot that you’re trying –“

“I’m not _forcing_ myself to hang out with you,” she says. She can’t look at him. “I mean it. I just… I did realize that I wasn’t a very good friend.” She shrugs as she says it, but he can see the guilt in her eyes. He’s not sure what to do with it. “When you went…” here she makes a vague gesture that he’s supposing means comatose, “I realized that it was awful of me, that I hadn’t even noticed. I call myself your friend, but I don’t make any effort to spend time with you. There’s no reason not to – you’re fun, and you’ve always been great to hang out with. I just take it for granted that you’ll be around, or that you’ll make the effort to keep up our friendship, so I never did.”

His expression gentles even further. “I never saw it like that, Allison.” Because he understands. He’s not anyone’s first choice – not even really Scott’s anymore. He doesn’t hold a grudge about it, because he does understand. He’s so hard to deal with, now even more so. He can’t hold himself together, why would he expect someone else to be there to watch ( _Derek_ )? At the thought, he wraps his hoodie around himself tighter, as if it will help hide him.

She meets his eyes, her own determined. “I did, because that’s how it was. I’m not saying it because things got shitty for you and I’m trying to make you feel better.” She runs a hand through her hair. Stiles takes a moment to marvel at how it’s so close to being grown back entirely. She speaks again, reclaiming his attention. “I need you to understand why I’m doing this.”

He’s honestly stumped trying to understand why she’s putting so much effort into this. “Allison, it’s fine. I promise, I don’t hold it against you. I didn’t even really know something was wrong.”

“I know,” she says softly. “It doesn’t stop me from feeling bad. It kind of makes it worse, that I was treating you like that and you didn’t even really know it.” She shrugs, expression self-conscious. “I mean, Lydia spends time with you all the time! And it never occurred to me that I should do the same. Friends hang out. Friends don’t see that something’s wrong and ignore it. Friends don’t do that and just assume that everything’s okay because they don’t want to accept that something could be really wrong.”

“Allison.” She stops short when he says her name, and lets him lace their fingers over the table. She glances down at his hand, and he realizes she’s really noticing the size difference. She’s slim and always has been, so the difference isn’t huge, but she can’t miss how skeletal his fingers look. “It’s okay,” he says gently. “I forgive you.”

She bites her lip with watery eyes and smiles.

“Allison?”

Isaac comes up behind her. When he sees Stiles, he gives him a smile. It’s not as open as the ones he gives the others, but that’s okay. Even with the friendship they’d developed after the mess with the Nemeton, they aren’t close. Stiles is surprisingly okay with that – they have time, and a pack-bond. It’s worth something.

“Hey, man,” Stiles greets him, and Isaac looks a little relieved that he’s in a good mood. After the coffee table incident – which somehow he knows everyone knows about, though they all refuse to talk about it – his moods fluctuate a lot. It’s a good day, though, for the most part.

“Hey,” he answers. “Sorry to steal Allison, but we sort of have a date.” He colors. “With Scott.” Stiles feels sort of good about the fact that Isaac felt the need to give him full disclosure. He just grins.

“Wear protection,” is all he says, but it makes Isaac’s cheeks darken and Allison laugh, so he counts it as a win. “Bye, guys.”

“Bye, Stiles,” Allison says, and leans over to kiss his cheek.

He watches them leave, but eventually returns to his paper. He writes a bit more, but it’s lost his interested. His productive energy has more turned toward socializing and goofing off, which is more than he’s been able to say for months. He doodles while he tries to decide whether he’s going to force himself to work or not.

“Stiles,” he hears over his shoulder. “Why are you drawing a tree?” Coffee Shop Girl is leaning ever slightly by his shoulder to look at his doodle, curious and friendly.

“No reason,” he says, laughing lightly, but something in his chest tightens when he realizes that he hadn’t actually meant to draw the tree in the first place. “I’ve got to go though, so thanks for getting my attention.” He tries to laugh it off, but the girl’s smile slips a little when she meets his eyes.

“Okay,” she says slowly. “You alright?”

“Fine,” he answers, and forces himself to slow down a bit in his haste. He was bending the edges of his notebook as he tried to shove it into his backpack. “Yeah, I’m okay. Just gotta go.” He gives her a crooked smile. “Sorry.”

“As long as you’re okay. Sorry to bother you,” she answers, and smiles again.

“No bother,” he answers. Her friend calls to her from a table a few feet away – _Katie_ – and she gives him a little wave and a goodbye. He replies, then promptly makes himself scarce. He doesn’t need her getting mixed up in his shit – but it’s still nice to know that she cares.

She’s a sweet girl, he thinks with a little smile, but then he sees Derek waiting for him as he steps outside ( _doesn’t trust him to drive)_ , and all thoughts of her slip from his head. He grins, and makes his way toward Derek’s Toyota. Derek’s smile is blinding. 


	35. Chapter 35

“What aren’t you telling me?”

To his credit, Stiles doesn’t really react. Derek says it in such a soft, curious voice – not really angry, not even upset. He knows that attacking Stiles about it won’t get him a desirable result, no matter how frustrated he is.

“Telling you would defeat the point of not telling you,” Stiles points out, like it has to be said, but the stiffness that had drained from his shoulders at the start of the movie has returned. Derek sighs, shifting on the couch, and rests his cheek in his palm, watching Stiles with a peculiar look in his hazel eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it, Derek.”

Because talking about it will inevitably get him worked up, and he doesn’t want to smash another coffee table into small pieces. “You don’t hide anything else from me, Stiles, unless it’s something about you. About what’s going on.” And that’s also true. Stiles tells Derek _everything_. They spend many a night up until morning just talking. Derek, when not scowling and growling and brooding, is a good conversationalist. He’s smart and open-minded and lovely, which doesn’t help how Stiles is entirely in love with him.

But Deaton has sworn not to say anything, trusting him to take care of the whole _anchor_ situation himself, and he still doesn’t know what he wants to do with it. Of course he wants to get better, wants to stop feeling death wrapped around his heart whenever he stops to let himself, but he also doesn’t want to give this burden to anyone else.

“Maybe I don’t think you need all the details,” he counters, and Derek grits his teeth, making Stiles sigh. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, or that I don’t appreciate what you’re doing,” he tells him softly. “I’m not ready to have to make a decision.”

“About _what_?” Derek asks, and he maneuvers so his entire body is on the couch. Iron Man 3 is still playing in the background. “Stiles, just tell me what it’s about.” He says it like a command, but Stiles knows that’s his way of trying to convince himself he’s in control of the situation.

He debates telling him, but in the end, he just sighs and squints at Derek a bit. “There’s something Laura told me about, then Deaton confirmed it. There’s a way to… lessen the effects of the Nemeton. It’s how it’s supposed to be done, like how Emissaries usually bond with the entirety of their pack. But I don’t know what I want to do about it yet.”

Derek’s spine straightens, eyes widening. “Then you should do it! Stiles, if there’s a way to help you get better –“

“I’m getting better on my own,” he says firmly, glaring at him, but a slight sting on his palm – where four little crescents sit from where they’d helped him out of a panic attack earlier – and a voice that sounds a lot like Ana-Erica’s calls him a liar. “And that’s why I didn’t want to tell you. Because I knew you would insist that I do it.”

“Well, what’s the down side?” Derek asks him incredulously. “If it can help you –“

“It involves someone else,” he interrupts, giving Derek a hard look. “And I don’t… Derek, please. I don’t know yet.”

But Derek’s expression has softened. He’s not going to argue, because he gets it. “All right,” he says. “All right.” And he nudges Stiles’s knee with his foot, and grins when Stiles makes a face at him. “Sorry for being a raging dickhead, as you would put it.”

“And he’d be right,” Cora says as she passes from the kitchen to the stairs, making Stiles jump and glare at her half-heartedly.

“Who’s the raging dickhead now,” he grumbles, but when Derek laughs he can’t help but smile a bit. “You two are definitely related.” He gives Derek as sour a look as he can manage, but Derek just laughs louder. He just feels so _grateful_ that Derek is even here, let alone laughing with him, letting go of all the hurt on his shoulders so he can take care of Stiles.

He smiles helplessly at Derek, because he knows he’s not good enough for him but Derek means so much to him it doesn’t matter.

“Why do you look so sad?” Derek asks him softly.

“No reason,” he says automatically, because he can’t really just go _oh, it’s because every time I look at you I realize both that I love you and I can’t have you simultaneously._ “Feeling a bit cold,” he hedges, because he’s a glutton for punishment, and Derek rolls his eyes but smiles a little as he shifts again to hold an arm out and create a comfortable-looking niche against his body. Stiles doesn’t waste any time curling up to him. He’s always been tactile, but touching Derek is a balm for every ache in his body. The tension, the current of _too-much_ running under his skin, all of it seems to leech away when Derek touches him. He sighs in relief and rests his head against Derek’s shoulder.

Once, his father walked in when Stiles was curled up over Derek’s lap. Derek had spluttered, quickly going stony and brooding-looking as was his default, but his father knew Stiles too well. He’d given him a significant look, but then seemed to register that Stiles wouldn’t hold up under interrogation and had sighed before walking away.

“You guys are disgusting,” Cora sing-songs as she walks by again, this time heading back to the kitchen. She is carrying an empty plate.

“You can screw off,” Derek tells her flatly, but his arm tightens around Stiles.

“Disgustingly cute,” Stiles mutters, eager for an argument, but Derek just turns his face away from a faux-gagging Cora to chuckle into his temple. It’s surprisingly intimate, but instead of unsure or even uncomfortable, Stiles feels right at home.

(Derek is his home. Derek is also his happiness and his comfort and his heart. Derek is a lot of things.)

Derek grins down at him as Cora grumbles her way from the living room, and he can’t help but snicker and grin back. They turn back to the movie, only to find that it's almost over. Stiles doesn't want to move, so he glances up at the man holding him. 

Derek is watching him, and when Stiles meets his eyes, he leans down enough to press their foreheads together. "Promise me you'll think about it. What you told me."

"Derek -"

"Promise, Stiles. If it's about one of us... any one of the pack would do anything for you. We just want you to be okay." Stiles takes a breath, and purses his lips. Derek doesn't back down, eyes earnest and very close. Stiles can pick out amber and green and even bits of blue.

"All right," he agrees. His voice is hesitant, but it seems to appease Derek, who lets out a breath and smiles at him. 

"All right," he murmurs back. For a second, Stiles thinks that Derek's going to kiss him. His heart beats out of his chest, but Derek just closes his eyes for a minute. He opens them again with that tender look that Stiles can't get over. "Do you want to watch another movie?"

Derek knows, Stiles realizes, but it's not a bad thing. Derek still looks at him like he's precious. Derek is still here. It's not a kiss, but it's just as good. "Yeah," he answers, and Derek gets up. Stiles is comforted just by the fact that he comes back. 


	36. Chapter 36

“Stiles. Could I talk to you for a bit?”

Cora’s wearing a pair of artfully ripped skinny jeans and a cropped sweater with the words “I love New York” in bold cursive. She’s in the process of moving a box from Derek’s Toyota to their room upstairs, the muscles in her abdomen flexing. He’d offer to help, but Cora’s a lot stronger than he is, especially now.

“Uh,” he says intelligently.

She rolls her eyes. “Come on, loser,” she snorts. “I want to talk in private.” Derek’s at the store again, more and more comfortable leaving Stiles’s side now that he’s at least semi-functional, but his father is watching them, standing at the entrance to the stairs. He was supposed to be enjoying his day off watching TV, but apparently Cora and Stiles’s conversation is more interesting. He looks away when Cora gives him a look and switches her box to one arm, pulling Stiles embarrassingly easily up the stairs.

When the door to Cora and Derek’s room shuts behind them, she sets down the box on the IKEA bed they’d set up a couple months ago when it finally clicked that there was only one bed and two Hales (even if they were more likely to sleep in Stiles’s bed, or at his bedside, or on the couch, or on one memorable occasion, underneath the kitchen table), and turns to face him.

“I’m thinking we need to have a talk about this thing with you and Derek,” is what she says, and Stiles is about the opposite from expecting it. He feels a little shell-shocked, to be honest.

“No,” he manages to squeak, and she blinks before chuckling at him.

“Super cute,” she says in what’s probably supposed to be a supportive voice. “Really. But you can’t say you didn’t see this one coming. It’s practically in my job description as ‘only living family’ to have this talk with you.” Neither of them say anything about Peter. Stiles hasn’t seen hide nor tail of him in months, and he has no desire to.

“Cora, please,” he sighs after a long minute. “Please don’t say anything to him.”

She rolls her eyes. “Embarrassed? I mean, it’s not like he’s gonna yell at _you_ for the protective sister speech. Come on.” She runs a hand through her dark hair.

“Cora! I will seriously beg you. Please don’t tell him. I don’t even know how you figured it out, but I don’t want anything to change just yet.” And it’s not a lie. He doesn’t want to hear the inevitable “it’s not you, it’s me” speech that Derek will give him. While it’s a significant improvement over the punch in the face he would have expected before, it would still be enough to crush whatever’s left of his spirit.

“Why not?” she asks, looking honestly curious. “For real. Are you scared about how your dad or Scott will react? Because neither of them are going to care. I’m pretty sure we all know. It’s kind of cute, that you think you can hide it.”

He pales a little. “Tell me you won’t say anything – that none of you will say anything! God, if Derek finds out, he’ll –“

“Wait,” Cora interrupts, looking confused. “What do you mean, if Derek finds out? I’m pretty sure he already knows.”

“He would have said something if he knew!” Stiles exclaims, twisting his fingers together. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “Wouldn’t he?”

She squints at him. “Are you guys just not talking about the fact that you’re in a relationship? Is that why you’re trying to keep it secret?”

“Wait, what?”

Now the both of them are officially confused.

“What did you think we were talking about?” Cora asks him, and her normally stoic expression is a very teenage look of confusion and judgment. She definitely inherited the Hale eyebrows, he thinks to himself.

“My feelings for Derek?” It’s weird to say out loud, but Cora distracts him with her suddenly gaping mouth.

“Okay,” she says slowly. “Holdup. You’re telling me that you have feelings for my brother. And that’s what you thought I was trying to talk to you about?”

“Weren’t you?”

“No. Stiles…” She trails off, exhales, and then makes a funny face. He bites his lower lip, trying to figure out what’s going on, when she snickers. Loudly. Then continues to do so, completely ignoring the blush spreading across his cheeks, though he’s not sure why. “Stiles, I was going to give you the ‘if you hurt my brother’ talk, since I was about 99.9% sure you two were in a relationship. Seriously, though, how are you not? You’re attached at the hip. You can’t blame me for assuming you were boning.”

“First of all,” he says, scandalized. “Please don’t ever use the word _boning_ again. Second, of course we’re not in a relationship! Derek doesn’t even know how I feel about him. I highly doubt he would return those feelings even if he did, and I have no desire to fuck up the friendship I _finally_ have with him. How did you even jump to that conclusion?”

“I don’t know,” she snorts, rolling her eyes. “Maybe it’s the way you look at him like the sun is shining out of his ass. Or how he carries you places even though you are perfectly capable of walking yourself to the kitchen and back. Or _maybe_ it’s because you two are so in love it’s coming out of your ears. Which, I assure you, is the weirdest expression I’ve ever seen on my brother’s face.” When he just stares at her, gaping, she sighs. “Stiles, I spent almost half a year on a road trip with him, and I never saw him as happy as he is here with you. You may look at him like he’s the sun but I’m pretty sure he thinks you hung the moon and each individual star.”

“He doesn’t –“

But Cora just raises an eyebrow at him. “I think you should have a long talk with my brother, since it’s clearly a little too soon for the talk I was going to have with you.”

He _can’t_ , and he opens his mouth to tell her that but the words won’t come out. He can’t process what’s happening, and he thinks he’s about to have a panic attack when Cora is suddenly in front of him, hushing him and stroking his hair.

“Calm down,” she says gently, and it seems so at odds with the usually gruff exterior she usually shows people. “If you’re not ready, then that’s fine. But he came back to Beacon Hills for you, moved into your house and spends our insurance money on your groceries. He would do anything for you. Don’t push him away just because I said something you weren’t ready to hear.” And she sounds a little guilty, but her words somehow calm him down ever so slightly.

“I can’t make him deal with me,” he breathes, his eyes feeling wet, but he refuses to cry, even if he knows Cora won’t judge him for it. He realizes that he's been ignoring the obvious, actively avoiding the thought that Derek might actually return his feelings. If Cora's right, he's just delaying the inevitable. He doesn't know if that makes him happy or horrified.

“He already is,” she says bluntly. It feels like a wake-up call. “And he’s going to keep doing it even if you try to make him stop. He’s invested now. He wants to take care of you and to help you get better.”

He looks up at her wordlessly. When he doesn’t say anything, she gives him an exasperated sigh, but it seems almost fond. “All right,” she tells him after a moment. “Go forth and be insecure elsewhere. Just know that you have my blessing to bone my brother so long as you don’t break his heart, and we’ll pretend for the sake of your dignity that this conversation never happened.”

“I can deal with that,” he agrees, and she grins at him impishly. He grins back, weakly, and lets her herd him from the room. He heads to his own bedroom, in sudden need of a long nap and a white room full of reasonable second opinions.


	37. Chapter 37

“I always knew my sister inherited something from me,” is the first thing Laura says when he ‘pops’ into whatever between-death-sub-space they’re all in. It’s only him, Laura, and Erica this time, who grins wolfishly at his blushing face. “Crafty thing. I’m surprised she didn’t figure out the whole story, though.”

“I’m glad she didn’t,” he grumbles, walking over to them. He takes a seat on the Nemeton, cross legged.  “I nearly had a panic attack. It wasn’t fun at all.” He runs a hand through his messy hair and thinks absently that it probably needs a trim.

“It was a little bit fun,” Laura hedges, and Erica cackles when he grimaces.

“Not even a little bit,” he bites out. “Honestly. I felt like I was being cornered by a predator.”

“Well –“

“Don’t say it, Erica.” She shrugs, but watches him carefully.

“You know that isn’t what Cora meant to do,” Laura said softly. She was sitting in front of him, leaning against the Nemeton. “She can be thoughtless but she’s not cruel. She wasn’t trying to torment you.”

“I know she wasn’t,” Stiles admits. “But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m not – I wasn’t ready to hear it. I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t even know if I _should_ do something about it.” Erica snorts and he glares at her. She doesn’t seem to care about his sharp look.

“Honey, you’ve wanted him forever,” Erica tells him plainly. “Is it really such a surprise that something would come of it?” His expression seems to answer her question easily enough. “Stiles. I had a crush on you throughout all of middle school and most of high school. I can tell you right now that you’re a catch. Derek has issues up the wazoo but he’s not blind or stupid. Of course he likes you back.”

Laura smiles at him, but she looks far more amused than Stiles would like. “Sorry,” she snickers a bit when he gives her the same look he’d given Erica. “I’m just contemplating my existence, since I’ve been out of high school for like eleven years and dead for two and _I’m still dealing with high school drama_.” She manages to snort out _likes you back, what, do you like-like him?_ Stiles can’t help but laugh a bit himself.

“It’s not quite high school,” he tells her, fidgeting a bit. “It’s more serious than that.”

“It doesn’t change the fact that we’re dealing with you like-liking a boy,” she sighs, wiping imaginary tears from her eyes. Stiles is hit with this overwhelming fondness for her, grinning unwillingly when she winks at him. “I swear I’m not laughing at you. If Derek were here I’d probably be teasing him instead. As it is, though, I get to tease my almost brother-in-law.” She reaches up to pinch his cheek and he bats her hand away, cheeks scarlet.

“You act like we’re going to get married and have 2.5 kids,” he grumbles, but somewhere deep inside, he’s wishing he _makes_ it long enough for a wedding and children.

“We Hales do like having large families. You might want to aim for 6.5.” If he hadn’t known her so well, he would have choked. As it is, he glares at her venomously.

“You’re evil,” he says maturely, turning away when she starts cackling. As annoyed as he is, he can’t help but feel as if he’s getting to see the happy, childlike woman Derek sometimes described when he could speak around the lump Laura’s death put in his throat. It feels kind of like a gift.

“And you should talk to my brother,” she says when she calms down. Erica is just chuckling to herself, nodding in agreement with Laura. “You have my blessing, if you need it.”

“Why would I need your blessing?” But they both know it’s a deflection and he sighs. “I’m not ready for any of this. Not when I still –“ _Feel like death_. “He already puts up with so much.”

“And he’ll keep putting up with it whether you’re together or not,” Erica tells him flatly. “Cora already said that. He’s not going anywhere, Stiles. He’s put you above everything – he came back to Beacon Hills for you.”

“I know that! And I’m grateful –“

“But what?” she asks, eyes pinning him like a butterfly to a corkboard. “You want him. He wants you, too, unless I am _very_ much mistaken. There’s nothing wrong with taking what you want. The man is your anchor, if not magically – yet. What’s going to be the difference in now and taking that step forward?”

He opens his mouth, but Laura interrupts. “Some kissing, I bet. That’s it. That’s the difference. He’ll be able to openly kiss you where he won’t know. But he’ll still take care of you. He’ll still listen to your heartbeat to go to sleep – just guessing here but I wouldn’t put it past him – and he’ll still live in your house and spend every waking moment making sure you’re safe and happy.” She looked unimpressed with his reluctance.

“I need to talk to Derek,” he says quietly. She nods. Erica comes over and sits next to him on the stump, hugging him lightly.

“It’s going to be okay, Stiles,” she tells him softly. Laura meets his eyes, expression open and supportive. “He’s good – god, Stiles, he’s so good. I saw him, underneath the anger and the _alpha_. We all did. He’s a good man. It’s okay to love him. It’s okay to want him.” And he can hear the vulnerability in her voice. She is, at heart, still a sweet teenage girl with daydreams of perfect romances and love. He wants to feel like that again – that one day, he would have all of that. He presses a kiss to her forehead.

“I’ll talk to him,” he agrees, and she smiles. Something in it is sad. He brushes a lock of hair behind her ear. He looks down at Laura when she puts a hand on his knee and smiles at him, that same slightly sad smile.

“You’ll be okay, Stiles,” Erica tells him. “Derek has already helped – who’s to say that he can’t help even more? Derek will make everything all right.” Laura’s eyes tell him that she’s thinking the same thing – that knowing Erica was putting such trust in him would simultaneously build and break Derek. Stiles knows that he will never say a word of this conversation to him.

“I hope you’re right,” he answers and this time, he’s the vulnerable one. She smiles at him, a little brighter, and he can only pray that this is the right thing.


	38. Chapter 38

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that took so long guys! New essay, end of senior year - I've been busy. I'll try not to take so much time between chapters again, though.

Stiles doesn’t know what possesses him to say it in the grocery store. He really doesn’t. All he knows is that he promised to do it a week ago, and that Dan has been following him for two days, telling him that he doesn’t have to say anything – _it’s probably better for Derek if you don’t. You’re sparing him this, don’t you want to spare Derek this sort of pain? Dealing with you is hard enough without feelings. Besides, what if he doesn’t feel the same way?_

He’s fed up and feeling pretty shitty, and he doesn’t think to wait until they get home. He just opens his mouth and says it, then his brain catches up with his mouth and he visibly blanches.

“Don’t you think we should talk?”

Derek looks vaguely confused and a little concerned, but most of all, he looks a little embarrassed. His eyebrows furrow and his lower lip sticks out just enough to make Stiles feel like stammering and blushing and looking away.

“In the middle of the grocery store?” Derek asks slowly, and Stiles is probably the exact shade of red as the tomato Derek was in the middle of putting in a plastic sack.

“No, of course not,” he laughs, sounding a little-high pitched and panicky. “I was just –“ Words fail him and he giggles nervously. “I didn’t mean in the middle of – could we forget I said anything?”

Derek raises an eyebrow, and damn, Stiles forgot how strong his eyebrow game can be. He’s already nervous and embarrassed, but now he kind of wants to cower a little bit and never meet Derek’s eyes again. “Your timing is interesting,” Derek says, but he gives him a small smile – the only smile he’s pretty sure Derek knows, because even when laughing he doesn’t really look that happy, although that’s changing bit by bit. “But we can talk when we get home if you want.”

He nods and watches his feet, trailing after Derek like a duckling. Derek had been so pleased when he’d offered to go shopping with him, but now he’s wondering if it was a good idea or not. He feels like an idiot – even more of an idiot when Derek shoos him away from putting the bags in the Toyota’s back seat. He goes to sit in the passenger seat, fiddling with his seat belt and waiting for Derek to start the car.

The grocery store is five minutes away from his house, max, but it’s apparently enough time for him to say something stupid.

“I mean, talk about us.” And because he can’t shut up, “About our weird sort-of-relationship.”

The Toyota swerves slightly. “And you had to bring this up in the middle of the grocery store?” he demands incredulously. Stiles would think he’s angry if it weren’t for the way his cheeks are turning pink. “Jesus, Stiles.” He won’t look away from the road, but it gives Stiles an excellent view of his ear, which is also a fetching shade of red.   

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, but he really can’t stop from talking, apparently. “I just – Cora brought it up, and I wouldn’t even have really noticed if it wasn’t for that. Then Laura and Erica spent an entire night telling me that we really needed to talk about it and the more I postponed it the more it seemed like we probably should talk about –“

“Stiles, for the love of god, please stop talking,” Derek says (begs). “I’m trying really hard to compute what’s going on here and drive at the same time. Don’t get us into a car crash.”

He looks down at his lap and feels like he’s probably ruined everything. They’re silent as they pull up the empty Stilinski-Hale house, and Stiles helps him put away the groceries without saying a word.

Finally, they’re sitting awkwardly on the couch. “So Cora told you… what exactly?” Derek asks at last. Stiles lets out the breath he’d been holding.

“She kind of started to give me the ‘if you hurt my brother’ lecture before realizing that I had no idea what secret relationship she was talking about,” he answered, the words a jumble that only Derek could apparently understand.

“She thinks we’re in a secret – _Jesus_ ,” Derek repeats, and he looks a little stunned. There’s none of the scowl on his slack face. Stiles feels like he might have broken him. (It’s not a good feeling.)

“So does the rest of the pack, according to her,” he adds, wincing when Derek lets out a wounded noise and covers his face.

“The pack thinks I’m in a relationship with a seventeen year old,” he groans. “I’m now a statutory rapist. That is – great, that is exactly what I wanted to hear.”

Stiles feels very small. “I’m sorry,” he mutters, trying not to let his hurt show on his face. “I um, didn’t know.” Derek is rubbing a hand over his face, but at his words, he looks at him through his fingers, green eyes weary and kind of intense.

“Quit apologizing, Stiles,” he sighs. “It’s not – god, quit looking at me like that.” Stiles frowns, offended, but Derek reaches over and puts a hand on his knee. “Stiles, I didn’t mean that as an insult. You can’t blame me for freaking out about this.” He pauses. “How long have you known about this?”

“About a week,” he answers quietly, pulling his legs up onto the couch, wrapping his arms around his knees. “I didn’t know how to say anything. And I mean, I straightened things out with Cora, sort of, but –“

“What do you mean, sort of?” Derek asks.

He buries his face in his arms. “I kind of don’t want to tell you.” But he sighs and looks up, peeking at Derek over his arm. “I did explain that we’re not in a relationship, but…” He stops abruptly and takes a shaky breath. “I have… _feelings_. For you.” The words are stilted but recognizable and Derek’s eyes widen, though the rest of his body stays perfectly still.

When a minute passes and nothing is said, Stiles flushes and shifts a bit, nails digging into his knees through his sweats. The pain helps stop a panic attack, but it does nothing for the rapid beating of his heart, the shame and embarrassment that’s causing him to stutter over excuses.

“Not that – it’s not like it’s _important_. I mean, I’m just a stupid kid and you look like a Greek god,” Stiles stammers. “I never expected anything to come of it, duh, that would be even stupider – I’m such an _idiot_.” The nails aren’t working anymore and he reaches up to yank at his hair, flushing and almost on the verge of tears (oh _hell_ no, he doesn’t want to cry over this, but he doesn’t know what he’s doing and every word out of his mouth is even more condemning).

“Stop that,” Derek says gruffly, reaching over to tug his hand away from his hair. He doesn’t let go. “I just – _shit_ , Stiles, I don’t know what to say.” Stiles opens his mouth to tell Derek he doesn’t have to say anything – that he _gets_ it, that he wouldn’t want him, either – but Derek isn’t done talking. “I can’t – you’re _seventeen,_ Stiles. I feel like I would be taking advantage of you, especially considering everything that’s happened these past few months.”

But it’s not a _no_. It’s not a rejection. “I really like you,” he says, practically at a whisper, and watches as Derek gapes a little at the admission. It sounds immature, but he doesn’t want to say _love_. He can’t barely admit it to himself.

“Stiles,” Derek murmurs, and swallows. He’s still holding Stiles’ hand. “I… why?” And he realizes that Derek looks as vulnerable as Stiles feels.

“I don’t know,” he answers. He’s barely able to get the words out. “You’re just _good_. I was always sort of attracted to you, but – you came back to help me. We started texting and I finally got to know you. I just – how could I not? You’re amazing.” He almost wants to laugh at Derek’s dumbstruck expression.

“I care about you, too,” Derek says at last, expression hesitant, the words strange sounding on his tongue. Underneath that, he looks almost hopeful. “That’s why I came back. Because I got to know you, too, and because I care about you. But, Stiles, you’re so young. And with all of this happening…”

Maybe it’s the excitement or nerves, but Stiles is almost terrified by the surge of magic underneath his skin. It’s been boiling for minutes, building with his tension level, but he hadn’t realized it until now. He goes to pull away from Derek, afraid of hurting him, when Derek squeezes his hand.

He’s been hyperaware of Derek’s every movement for the past half hour, so maybe it shouldn’t surprise him that he finally realizes what’s happening.

“You’ve been draining my magic,” he says. His muscles feel slack, some of that feeling around his heart lightening. He looks up at Derek in horror. “You’ve been doing it all along.” When he reaches out with his magic, he can feel it – a weak tether between them, an unofficial, building bond.

He yanks his hand from Derek’s, the magic building again without Derek’s touch. It’s such a weak bond – not strengthened with intent, but built unintentionally between them with Stiles’s feelings and Derek’s support as anchors.

_Anchor._

“Stiles!” Derek says, surprised and confused.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he says – _wheezes_ , really; he can’t breathe can’t think can’t anything – and then he stands, stumbling over the arm of the couch. He really can’t help it. He runs.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I haven't said this, feel free to talk to me over at tisthewoman.tumblr.com! :)


	39. Chapter 39

It’s chilly, even though it’s well into April. He’s not wearing shoes and his t-shirt is made of too-thin cotton. He hears Derek call after him as he sprints out onto the street, but Derek isn’t chasing him – not yet. He knows Derek will follow, and he knows that he’s probably scaring him – but Derek can’t possibly be as terrified as Stiles is. All he knows is that he needs to get away before he does something stupid. It’s so fucking _cold_ , the wind brushing against his bare skin, with no real fat to keep him warm. He should be freezing ten minutes into his running.

He can’t feel it.

The magic sizzles underneath his skin, burning ever brighter the further from Derek he runs. This is the most physical activity he’s had in months and his lungs protest, but his feet (bloody, cut on rocks and branches) carry him toward the preserve. He can barely see through the tears running down his face. As he breaks the tree line, he bursts into the woods like they can protect him from himself. The more distance between them, the fragile link between him and Derek strung out like a strand of silk. It’s so small yet so significant – he almost can’t believe that he could have gone so long without realizing it was there. If he concentrates enough, he can feel Derek’s distress through it, only barely. Just enough that he knows that Derek is in a panic. Derek is panicking over _him_ , his safety.

He makes a sound he can’t describe as anything but a howl, and he hears something to his right crack – a fucking _tree_ , split by a golden blade that dissolves into flame upon impact. Everything his feet touches is smoking behind him and he looks down for only a second to see his skin _glowing_. He’s too full of light and power, but unlike his time with the Nemeton this feels more than too much. This feels like he’s going to explode, fall apart and they’ll find parts of him buried hundreds of miles apart in the woods.

“I don’t want this,” he manages, the words breathy and quiet and almost inaudible. He stumbles over a root and hits the ground hard, but the second his hands touch the leaves and grass, they go up in flame.

He jerks back, scrambling backward, but everywhere his hands touch, more flames erupt. He sobs, unable to think, only registering that the more his magic seemed to flare out and expend itself, it only grew. It continued to build inside him, burning everything – his lungs, his brain, his heart.

He doesn’t know where he’s going, but suddenly he’s running again, needing to move, to work this out – to do _something_ to get rid of the pressure inside of him. “ _Stop_ ,” he wheezes, but another blast of _something_ escapes him and lights a tree branch in flame. He skids to a stop, sobbing, just before running into the flames, and ducks to the right.

He stumbles across a pathway and realizes that he’s headed toward Hale house. Surprisingly, his feet carry him that much faster, suddenly needing to be somewhere familiar, safe – empty. “ _Get out of my head!”_ he screams, and for a second, all he can see is fire. He’s burning up, his magic translating his turmoil into destruction.

His heart nearly stops and with it the flames – painless, except for their heat, keeping him sweltering even in the cool wind – stutter and die. His skin still glows, though, and he collapses into the grass outside the Hale house, making awful noises he wouldn’t have believed could come from a human being. He doesn’t have enough air to properly sob, but he’s still crying. The flames are spreading from his body curled on the grass, burning everything. He chokes on tears, letting out this wet cough. “Stop,” he whispers again as he watches the flames crawl toward Hale house. Suddenly, he realizes that he’d made a very bad decision in coming here.

The huge house is a comfort, but the fire is spreading too quickly and he can’t control it anymore. His skin is too tight and his heart is beating too fast, and he forces himself onto his feet. He stumbles forward, toward the house, and catches his reflection in one of the broken windows.

 _His eyes are gold_.

They are blazing, so bright it hurts to look at. He looks like his skin is the poorly chosen container for a star going supernova, opening his mouth in another scream. This time, he has the opportunity to watch as he’s engulfed in the fire.

He deserves this, he thinks desperately, and falls to his knees, trying to curl in on himself again.

(The flames have reached the porch, licking up the steps as if this house hasn’t already seen enough pain and destruction.)

It’s his own fault. No matter how much he’d tried to save Derek from this, he’s so _selfish_. He loves him anyway, wants him more than he wants anything else.

(Except maybe his mom, and Erica, and Derek’s whole family to be happy and together again.)

 _I didn’t want this_ , he mouths, unable to force the words out.  _I didn’t want to do this to you_. And he really didn’t. God, he just loves Derek so much! He loves everyone so much and he doesn’t want to be their burden anymore. He wants to get better but with this feeling under his skin he doesn’t know if he ever will, if he’ll just burn away with the house.

(This house, that’s absorbed Derek’s pain, Peter’s death, and now Stiles’ destruction.)

Then, he sees Derek – standing at the edge of the clearing, eyes wide and panicked, mouth opened wide. _Screaming_ at him.

“Stiles, please!” Stiles doesn’t even know what Derek’s asking for, but the sight of him makes that line connecting them flare up, and Stiles covers his eyes with his palms, digging the heel of his palm into the indention.

“Don’t get any closer than that!” he yells back, and a window shatters. He flinches away from the sound and Derek makes a sound in the back of his throat, jerking forward a foot before Stiles throws a hand out to try and stop him.

“No!” he cries out, his gesture sending the fire spreading towards Derek, eating the grass up. Derek moved out of the way, eyes frantic – going from Stiles to the house and back again.

“We can fix this,” Derek yells at him desperately, barely heard over the sound of Hale house burning.

“I don’t want to hurt you!” Stiles answers, voice hoarse and cracking. He watches Derek take another step or two forward and careens back as his skin shines like the sun. He’s going to be eaten by it, consumed completely, he’s sure of it – it’s too much and he can’t do it, so he just throws his head back and screams.

All at once, the power inside of him expands and bursts like a popped balloon. He can’t stand upright anymore and falls, body crumpling. Derek is thrown backwards, giving this harsh sound of pain that’s drowned out by a horrible creaking. He watches, cheek pressed into the grass, as, all at once, the Hale house collapses like Stiles did, caving in on itself until nothing is left but the foundation and basement stairs, filled with rubble. The porch is still half-formed, but everything past that is no more than charred wood and ashes.

The fire blinks out just as suddenly, leaving Stiles lying in the middle of blackened ground. He cries into the dirt and burnt grass without moving until Derek rushes forward, dropping to his knees at his side. Stiles manages to find his shape through the blurriness of his tears and throws himself forward into Derek's arms, who tightens his hold and makes a sound that might be a sob into Stiles' hair. Overwhelmed and terrified and a hundred other emotions, Stiles can't do more than turn his face into Derek's neck and give a wet sounding, half-formed whimper into his skin.


	40. Chapter 40

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Talking happens. A glorious hallelujah reigns from the heavens.

It takes what feels like forever for the police and fire department to arrive. Stiles can’t let go of Derek – he won’t; he feels like he’ll float away if he does. Derek’s touch quells the fire inside of him, calms the ripple of magic.

(Something has broken, like a cap that bursts under too much pressure.)

“Stiles?” His father sounds a little high-pitched, terrified. “Stiles, what happened? What are you doing out here?”

His father rushes over, goes to put his hand on Stiles’ shoulder, but he flinches into Derek’s arms, away from his father’s touch. “I started it,” he whispers, only loud enough for his father and Derek to hear. “My magic went crazy. I didn’t _mean_ to, I was upset and freaked out!”

“Stiles,” his father says softly. “Stiles, it’s okay.” He trades glances with Derek, who nods against Stiles’ hair. “Why were you out here?”

“I just got upset and started running,” he whispers. He can’t make his voice any louder, even if he tries. He doesn’t _want_ to. He’s starting to feel like it would be okay if he never speaks again. He closed his eyes tightly and lies, knowing his father understands what he means. “Then I saw the fire – I had to check if it was the old Hale house.”

“And it was on fire.” His voice is firm, his expression a mask. Stiles nods and presses his face back into Derek’s neck. “It’s okay, kid,” his father tells him quietly. “I’ll take care of this. Derek, can you take him to my car?”

“He needs to go to Deaton,” Derek says, intense. He’s running his hand gently up and down Stiles’ back. (He’s also not wrong.)

“Stiles?” His father has turned to him, and he nods. He knows Derek’s right. “All right. I’ll talk to them – you won’t get in trouble.” Derek stands, pulling away from Stiles to get upright. He’s halfway through extending his arm to help Stiles up, but Stiles is lurching forward. He nearly brakes his nose on Derek’s knee, but it doesn’t matter.

“You can’t let go,” he says sharply, urgently. “The magic – it’s going nuts. If you let go, I’ll burn everything up again.” Derek’s eyebrows furrow in confusion, but he takes Stiles hands and helps him up. “I’ll explain – I promise I’ll explain, but you can’t let go.”

He can feel the tiny almost-bond between them, leeching the spark from him, keeping it steady. The second Derek had stopped touching him, it had grown again. The fires would have re-lit and he couldn’t let that happen.

“I’m taking him to Deaton’s,” Derek says aloud, to his father. When he gets a nod in response, he begins to lead Stiles away. “I didn’t follow you until I saw the smoke from all the fires in the preserve. I parked just up here,” he told Stiles in a low voice. When Stiles looked up at him with a vulnerable, questioning expression, he shrugged slightly. “I figured it would be weird if they found us out here without a car, right? I mean, you ran – obviously – but I figured it would make more sense if I had driven to find you once I saw the smoke.”

He nods, understanding. “You can’t let go, though. Please, trust me – you can’t let go,” he repeats, holding onto Derek’s hand like he’d die without the touch. (It feels like he might. Levelling the Hale house had felt like exploding.) “My magic only drained for a little bit. It’ll come back if you let go.”

“I’ve got you,” Derek says firmly. “It’ll be fine. Not letting go.”

He stops outside the car. “How do you want to do this? I can get in and climb over the console into the driver’s seat, so you don’t have to let go of my hand.” Mutely, Stiles nods. “Okay,” Derek agrees gently.

He looks absolutely ridiculous, fitting his muscle and long legs over the console, but he doesn’t let go. Stiles counts his blessings.

“I have to tell you,” Stiles announces. He sounds scared out of his mind. (He is.) “But not until we get to Deaton’s.” Derek nods, starting the car and steering them out of the woods with one hand. “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he tells Derek in a small voice. He’s never been a weak or timid person, but since all this with the Nemeton, he barely feels strong enough to keep himself upright most days. (It had been getting better. Now, he’s not so sure.) “You have to believe me.”

“I do,” his not-anchor assures him. “Just – you mean it? You’ll really tell me what’s going on?” He squeezes Stiles’ hand. He shouldn’t be so surprised that Derek knows exactly what he’s going to tell him about. “You’ll tells us how to help you?”

He bites his lip and nods as Deaton’s office comes into view.

They pull the same maneuver to get out of the car, hands still clasped. He lets Derek lead him inside. “Deaton?” he calls.

“Derek?” Cora’s head pops out from the back room, expression surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“We need to talk to Deaton,” he says, and she nods minutely when her eyes focus on Stiles. She disappears into the back room again, and when she returns, Deaton is with her. He opens the counter, lets them through, but Stiles gets more and more tense as Deaton leads them to the back room.

“You’re lucky I don’t have any clients right now,” Deaton says calmly. “This is an actual business, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

“I destroyed the Hale house,” he croaks, like it’ll make it any easier to just throw it out there. “Well, ah, what was left of the Hale House, I guess. It’s pretty much gone now.”

Deaton’s frozen, and it’s only after a long minute that he turns around again. His eyes are wide, the first real expression of shock Stiles has ever seen on his face. His grip on Derek’s hand tightens and he reaches up, gripping Derek’s forearm with his other hand.

“I have to tell him,” he adds miserably. “But I don’t know how to actually do it. It’s there, sort of – but it’s not official.”

Deaton takes a deep breath. “You’re sure. You were very adamant about keeping it quiet before.”

“I have to,” he answers, and he looks down at his bare, bloody feet in shame. “I can’t control it anymore. Every time I let go of Derek, it just gets bad again.” He looks up, swallowing. “I set fires all over the preserve. I _leveled_ the Hale house.”

“Whatever natural seal on the magic the Nemeton is feeding you has broken,” Deaton observes. Even he looks nervous. Cora just looks _really_ confused. “You’re right. Tell him, then if he agrees, I’ll try and talk you through it, from what I understand of it.”

Stiles nods. After a beat, Deaton leaves to give them privacy and tugs Cora with him. He’s alone with an unsure Derek, who clearly doesn’t have any idea of what’s going on.

“What is this about?” he asks, softly. Derek’s hand comes up to his neck, thumb absently stroking the skin there.

Stiles swallows again, mouth dry. He doesn’t want to do this, but he _has_ to. “What I didn’t want to tell you, the way to help me – Laura calls it an anchor bond. Like a werewolf anchor, it’s supposed to keep me balanced and stable or whatever, but it’s two-way. The anchor shares some of the darkness, helps to keep the magic in check.” He shrugs, but Derek’s eyes are widening. “I don’t know the extent of it, but – I didn’t even notice, Derek, I swear to god. I didn’t know. I would never have done this without telling you –“

“What?” He doesn’t sound angry, so Stiles gathers his courage.

“We already sort of have a bond. I didn’t really notice it until earlier, but when you touch me, it sort of…” He struggles for the right word. “It just evens out. It drains a bit. Maybe it’s because of my – how I feel. About you. But there’s a bond. Not an official one, but it wouldn’t take much more. I can feel it, if I try.” He closes his eyes tightly and rubs at his face with one hand. The other is still holding tightly to Derek’s arm. “I didn’t want to do that to any of you. I _couldn’t_ give this to anyone, but especially you. You have so much of your own pain to deal with – how could I ever do this to you, on top of all of your own shit?” He laughs, but it sounds bitter. “I guess I don’t have a choice.”

Derek looks somewhere between devastated and shocked. “Stiles,” he whispers, and Stiles looks down. He almost panics when Derek lets go, but he only brings his hands up to cup Stiles’ face. “You should have _told_ me,” he says, voice thick with what Stiles can only assume is emotion.

“I didn’t think I had to,” he insists, but his eyes are starting to burn and he feels like he’s cried far too much, but he can’t seem to stop. “I thought it would get better on its own.”

“But it isn’t, Stiles!” Derek sounds frustrated, but it’s more fear than anger. “You should have known I would never turn you away. If you had asked I would have said yes!”

“Yeah, but why? Because you feel guilty?” he shoots back. Derek doesn’t stop touching him, but he rears back like he’s been slapped. “Because you’re too self-sacrificing for your own good?” Then, quieter – his voice breaking at the end – “Because you care about me?”

It’s very quiet for several moments. “Who’s the self-sacrificing one around here?” He knocks his forehead against Stiles’, leaving it there for a long minute. “I want to do this,” Derek tells him, just as quiet. “I do care about you. I do.”

“But I don’t get why,” Stiles answers, sounding so raw and hurt that he startles himself. Derek just looks wounded. “Why would you want to magically bind yourself to me for the rest of your life? It doesn’t make sense!”

“You’re an idiot,” Derek informs him solemnly, making Stiles laugh a little wetly. "Can you just trust that I know what I'm doing? We can talk about this, and our feelings, and whatever else we need to after you're safe and balanced. Okay?" He can't really speak, but he nods a little, forcing himself not to cry when Derek presses a kiss to his forehead.

“Mr. Stilinski,” he hears, and looks over to see Deaton standing in the doorway to the back room, calm and poised as always. “Have you come to a decision?”

“We’ll do it,” Derek announces firmly. Even so, Stiles opens his mouth to argue, but stops when Derek looks down and glares at him, determined. He shuts his mouth again, heart pounding, choking on the realization that _he loves this man_.

Deaton nods, accepting the answer. “Then let’s do this. Stiles?”

He looks between Derek and Deaton, unsure, but Derek just nods at him, expression gentle. _Welcoming_. He takes a deep breath and steels his nerves. “All right,” he agrees, and listens to Deaton explain how he was going to bind Derek to him for life.

 


	41. Chapter 41

“We don’t have to do this if you’re not ready,” Derek tells him, and it’s complete bullshit, but Stiles appreciates the effort. “Stiles, I’m being serious. You look like you’re about to throw up.”

He shakes his head, giving Derek the best smile he can. It’s crooked and Derek doesn’t look as relieved as Stiles thinks he should. “We need to do this,” he says, and Derek knows he’s right, but he doesn’t want to admit it. Stiles’ eyes flicker over the corner, then he adds quietly, “It’s not that. It’s just that Ana and the others just showed up.”

Derek’s head whips around, trying to find what Stiles is looking at. “They’re not real,” he says, and it’s not really a comfort when Not-Erica is glaring at him so darkly he’s actually a little afraid of her. Not-Boyd’s expressionless, but his eyes are cold, and not-Laura is frowning at him. They make him uncomfortable.

“I know that,” he replies as lightly as he can, and he does. It doesn’t make them any less unsettling. “Come on, focus. This takes two of us, you know.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Derek answers, and he rests his forehead against Stiles’ again. Stiles closes his eyes and revels in the contact.

“That’s what Deaton’s for,” he hums, and he hears a snort from where Deaton is flipping through a book. “Are you sure about this?” He meant to ask the question as an afterthought, but it comes out sounding a lot heavier than he intends.

“I would hope so, because I just found the paragraph I needed,” Deaton announces dryly, and Stiles opens his eyes to turn and glare at him.

“Stiles, is this really necessary?” Ana-Erica hisses at him. She’s come closer, circling them.

“Of course it is,” he tells her, eyes narrowing. He wants to be able trust her, but the look in her eyes is the furthest thing from the warm comfort she used to give him. “Unless you missed the part where I _leveled a house_.” Derek is trading glances with Deaton, looking worried, but Stiles can handle this. (He thinks.)

Ana-Erica growls at him. The sight of this tiny, emaciated girl growling would have been hilarious, if he hadn’t felt the vibration surround him. There was power behind the sound and he shivers in Derek’s arms. “It’s a gift,” she tells him forcefully. Her eyes flash. “Think of everything you could do with it!”

“Everything I could destroy,” he shoots back. “I don’t want that.” He turns back to Deaton, asking him firmly, “What do we do?”

“I need you to reach out with your spark,” Deaton tells him immediately. He’s prepared and calm and professional – Stiles is thankful he’s there. “Can you feel Derek at all?”

“There’s a bond already there,” he answers, reaching out and metaphorically grasping it. What he doesn’t expect is for Derek to gasp, stomach muscles flexing like he’d been punched in the gut unexpectedly. “It’s weak, not official or anything, but it’s there.” Then, after a pause, “That’s why I freaked out earlier. I realized that it was there – it probably has been for a while.”

“Good,” Deaton says, and he looks pleased for hearing it. “Use that, then. Do you have hold of it?”

“Mm-hmm.” He looks up at Derek, who’s watching him with shocked hazel eyes. “What next?”

Deaton circles them, Ana-Erica stepping out of his way with a truly spectacular scowl. She seems to melt back into the shadows the other two are hiding it. Cat-Laura’s red eyes are glowing at him, trying to quell his rebellion, but he turns from her and reminds himself that she _is not Laura._ “Derek, can you reach out as well?”

Derek looks over at Deaton, but he swallows and nods. Soon after, Stiles feels a prodding at his spark from the other end of their bond. It’s like a string tying them together, and it feels ridiculously good to feel the recognition from the other side. It feels like acceptance.

“You’re both grasping it? Firmly?” Deaton’s examining between them like he’ll be able to see it.

“What am I _listening_ to?” Stiles hears Cora asking incredulously from outside the door, and he snickers a bit. He meets Derek’s eyes, who looks a little more relaxed. He’s almost smiling.

“You’re not helping,” Deaton calls lightly, and he hears a huff, then the shuffle of feet. (She’s clearly pacing, but Stiles doesn’t let her anxiety freak him out. He _needs_ everything to be okay.) “All right. Stiles, this is going to feel strange, but to seal it, you need to feed him your magic – purposefully. All of it at once. Your spark will replenish once the bond is confirmed, so don’t worry about that.”

“All of it?” he asks nervously. It’s a lot of magic; a part of him is terrified that if he does as Deaton asks, he’ll hurt Derek. It’s nearly burning him alive – what would it do to Derek?

“He’ll be fine,” Deaton assures him gently. “Go ahead. You’ll both feel better once it’s over.”

“It’s okay, Stiles,” Derek whispers, sliding his hands up to cup his face. He reaches up and holds onto Derek’s wrists, needing the contact. “Do it. Everything will be okay.”

He nods and takes a shaky breath. “It’ll be okay,” he agrees, and Derek nods.

He reaches out to their bond, feeling as if he’s opening his entire being to the air. Derek is _right_ there, warm and just as open. He’s ready for this. Stiles closes his eyes, and just goes for it.

It’s uncomfortable, that’s for sure, and judging by the loud gasp Derek makes it’s not entirely pleasant for him, either. Stiles feels like he’s draining himself of everything – when did his magic start to feel just as important as his blood? As the air in his lungs?

Vaguely, he can hear Deaton coaching him through it, urging him to take deep breaths. Cora is somewhere in the background encouraging Derek to do the same, panicking ever so slightly, but all Stiles feels is Derek’s touch. He falls forward into Derek’s body and feels arms wrap around him supportively. They’re in this together.

He’s being wrung dry, he’s almost certain of it, and as the last of his magic surges through the bond, he begins to wilt. His knees give out and he can’t hold onto Derek anymore. He slumps down, but as the bond seals (he feels Derek come alive, connected and _real_ ) Derek’s arms strengthen. He holds Stiles up as the magic that Stiles had fed him comes rushing back. It evens out, kept in a careful balance by the steel line connecting them.

“This is new,” Derek tells him. He sounds kind of choked, a little overwhelmed – Stiles reaches up to brush a tear from Derek’s cheek.

“I think we just got magic-married, man,” he acknowledges faintly and Derek snorts a laugh. “No, really.”

“Yeah,” Derek agrees amiably, slipping an arm underneath Stiles’ legs. He lifts him into his arms and no, it’s not romantic or swoon-worthy. Stiles is exhausted, and Derek doesn’t look much better off, but Derek gets him onto the operating table. He’s curled up on the table and Derek rests against it, reaching out to pet at Stiles’ hair with a slightly trembling hand.

“I even wore you out, big guy,” he says with a weak grin. He does his best to project his emotions through the bond – _lovely, happy, warm –_ but Derek just runs his fingers through Stiles’ hair.

“Shh, don’t,” he murmurs. “You’re going to overdo it, you idiot.”

Stiles laughs quietly, and it’s like music when Derek laughs with him. “We’re a thing now, right?” he asks when the laughter dies down. He’s trying not to feel unsure, but he has to ask. “You’re sure about this?”

“I’m sure about you,” Derek tells him, tired and honest and _beautiful_. He leans in and gives Stiles the sweetest first kiss he’s ever had, and it might be the happiest moment of Stiles’ life.

He looks up a little while later, and the not-pack aren’t there anymore.


	42. Chapter 42

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the lightest chapter in the entire story - and also probably second-to-last.  
> With that said, I just want to say how much I really appreciate all the support you guys have given me. You really are the best - and if you hadn't noticed, this fic is so close to 1000 kudos I can taste it. I cannot believe that my little experiment story came so far. I will write more Teen Wolf fics in the future, so don't cry or anything. :)  
> I just don't know what else to say, except thank you. You guys really are the best. *hugs*

“What do you mean, _my son got married_?”

If Stiles wasn’t feeling so groggy, he would laugh at how high pitched his father’s voice had gotten. “I am so sick of being the one waking up while things are happening,” he grumbles, promptly ignoring his father when he makes a weird half-yell, turning to face him in surprise. “Derek, next time, I think it should be you that passes out.”

“He already did that,” Cora chimes in, smiling like the cat that got the cream. Derek, sitting in a chair by the table he’s lying on, looks very sullen – also better rested than he had been before. “You’ve been out for the better part of three hours. Derek was out for about two of it.”

“What do you mean, my son got married?” his dad repeats, sounding agonized, and Stiles chuckles, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He barely registers having to pull his hand from Derek’s to do so, and it feels natural to slip it back in.

“I didn’t say they got married,” Cora answers, exasperated. “I said they were sort of magic-married – I’m just quoting Stiles here; don’t shoot the messenger.”

“Go ahead and shoot her,” Derek deadpans, but he grins when Cora throws him a glare. Stiles is glad to see it. To be honest, this is what makes him feel better – Derek’s easy smile and the way Cora sticks her tongue out at him. Sometimes he forgets that she’s his age; this is a very welcome reminder. Derek turns to face him when the Sheriff seems too lost for words to speak. “How are you feeling?”

His thumb rubs circles into the back of Stiles’ hand. He squeezes Derek’s in return. “A lot better.” He tugs on the bond a little bit just to see Derek squirm, but when a faint pink rises on Derek’s cheeks, he gather’s that it’s a good squirming. “Thank you,” he murmurs. “Everything… everything feels a lot better.”

“You got married?” His dad sounds wounded, so he rolls his eyes and faces him.

“I’m not married, Dad,” he huffs, then smiles a bit and leans forward to press a kiss to Derek’s lips. (He’s not expecting it. He jumps a little. Stiles gets enjoyment out of it.) “But we are together. Like, together-together. Dad, I am finally in a relationship, and he’s actually attractive. _Score_.” He grins a little lopsidedly from Derek to his dad.

Rather than freaking out again, his father appears strangely teary-eyed.

“What?” Stiles asks, confused, and turns back to Derek, but his (boyfriend? Magic-husband? Life-bond-partner?) bond-mate looks just as astounded as his father does. “Did I say something weird? Is it too soon? Should I not have pulled the boyfriend card so soon?” It’s almost weird, that he’s not actually that worried about it. He remembers that just a little bit ago he would have been well on the road to depression from the uncertainty and doubt. Now, he’s just wondering if his big mouth will cause Derek to give him the eyebrows of doom like it used to.

“That’s the most like yourself you’ve sounded in months,” his father says faintly, and Stiles turns with raised eyebrows to Derek, who only seems capable of nodding.

“I feel more like myself,” he admits, and struggles to sit up and face everyone. Derek helps him into an upright position, giving him this small, proud smile. Stiles can’t see much of it on his face, but if he reaches out, the force of Derek’s relief and happiness – _pure joy_ – fills him to the brim. He holds his breath, surprised by the strength of his emotion, and when he lets it out it’s to smile dopily at Derek.

“You’re not out of the woods yet, Mr. Stilinski,” Deaton says dryly from behind him. (If asked later, he will deny jumping.) “I imagine it’s going to take a long while for your moods and magic to fully even out.” There’s a long pause, then he adds softly, “You weight is still an issue. That’s one thing that will be very difficult to overcome.”

“What do you mean?” he asks, feeling ever so slightly betrayed. “I’ve gained weight. I’m fine.”

Deaton raises one eyebrow. “Is that so?” He nods determinedly. “And how long has it been since you’ve eaten?”

He wilts a little. “I dunno,” he answers dully, realizing Deaton’s point.

“Your appetite is not what it should be,” the vet continues. “Developed because of the Nemeton or not, it’s not something that’s going to go away.” He turns to Derek, and the beta seems to realize all at once that he has two intimidating adults glaring him down. “I expect you, as his anchor and… boyfriend?” Flushing a little, giving Stiles a tiny side glance, he nods. “Yes, well. As his anchor and boyfriend, I fully expect you to keep tabs on this. He’s going to need help.”

Stiles’ father nods. “I’m not trying to give you all the responsibility for this, son, but you’re the one with him all the time,” he agrees with a wry smile.

“So keep doing what I’ve been doing,” he replies, raising his eyebrow right back at him, then at Deaton. The corner of the Sheriff’s mouth twitches slightly, then he gives up and laughs.

“Fair point,” he agrees, holding his hand up in mock defense. “Just keep doing it, then.”

Derek smiles back, only a little hesitantly. Even after all this time, he’s still not completely comfortable around the Sheriff, but Stiles can see it in his eyes – he is genuinely glad that they’re getting along. Some part of Stiles wants to analyze Derek’s desire to have a good relationship with Stiles’ father – with the way that Derek lights up ever so slightly when the Sheriff calls him _son_ – but the rest knows that it doesn’t need to be said. Stiles is just glad that Derek has this, when he hasn’t had much else go right in his life.

“I want to get better,” he says and runs his free hand through his hair. “Not that I didn’t before, but it’s different now. Easier. I needed this,” he admits. He looks up at his dad. “It’s going to get better now. I promise.”

They both know that he probably would have said it before, some stupid attempt to assuage some of his father’s stress and pain, but they also know that something has changed.

There’s a long pause, then Cora says, “Can we go home yet?” And maybe it’s the light (if slightly whiny) tone she takes, or the way she says _home_ like a few months ago she had no place she could call home.

“Yeah,” Stiles’ dad says, rolling his eyes at her, and he slings an arm over her shoulder and starts heading for the exit. Derek looks vaguely impressed that he gets away with it, but something tells Stiles that she’s just as glad as Derek to have some sort of father figure to care for her. “Are you guys coming? I’m thinking pizza.”

“I’m thinking veggie pizza for you, my man,” he calls to him, laughing when he hears his father’s snort in reply.

“I eat veggies, you do too!” the Sheriff threatens, and even Derek laughs.

“Remember what I said,” Deaton tells them, but he’s shooing them away, a clear dismissal. “I’d like to go home, too. Feel free to leave any time now.”

Stiles hops off the table, and no, he doesn’t need the supporting arm Derek wraps around him – but he doesn’t exactly _hate_ it, so he doesn’t say anything.

(Who is he kidding? If it keeps Derek touching him, he’s going to milk this for as long as he can.)

He smiles to himself and lets Derek “support” him out of the vet’s office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, hey! If you didn't notice before, I totally gave you guys my tumblr (tisthewoman.tumblr.com). I'd love to talk to you guys if you want to visit me on there!


	43. Chapter 43

“We should… definitely… go down and… wait for your friends to arrive.”

Kissing is more important than words, Stiles thinks, but Derek is making it so hard to ignore their plans.

“Your friends too,” he hums against Derek’s mouth, nibbling on his lower lip when he’s done. For once, he doesn’t think it’s necessary to fill the silence with chatter, a habit that has more or less returned with full force since their bonding.

“Your party,” Derek reminds him, and Stiles groans, pulling back to frown at him grumpily.

 “You are ruining my pre-party quickie plan,” he says petulantly, scowling when Derek laughs. “I’m not kidding! My party, my rules, and my rules dictate that I get to grind on your dick a little if I want to.”

Derek snorts, but he has a hand firmly gripping Stiles’ ass so Stiles doesn’t really think his boyfriend-forward-slash-mate gets to look so condescending. He feels a lot more comfortable with Derek’s hands on him now, and he’d like a lot more of it. Trust Derek to make it more difficult than necessary. “You know if I let you anywhere near my dick, all of your friends will be able to smell it,” Derek murmurs, pressing a kiss to his jaw, contradicting his own words. The closer he gets to Stiles’ neck, the grumpier Stiles gets, because here Derek is telling him _no_ and assaulting his erogenous zone at the same time. The _asshole_.

“Two!” he argues. “Two friends!”

“And the alpha werewolves that two of your non-werewolf friends are dating.”

“I don’t care about Ethan and Aiden,” he grumbles, lacing his fingers in Derek’s hair. “Honestly, Aiden flaunts that he just got laid all the time.”

Derek raises an eyebrow. “So you’ll subject Ethan to two smug got-laid-parades? Rude.” Stiles pulls back and gives him a sour look.

“Quit trying to make me feel bad,” he whines. Derek rolls his eyes and cants his hips upward to counter the subtle roll of Stiles’ hips that he’d (mostly) successfully ignored during their conversation. “I just want to touch you, is that so bad?” Stiles nudges Derek’s face back up to give him a kiss, then moves to his jaw, then (revenge!) mouths at Derek’s neck. Derek sighs, letting his head fall back. Stiles can practically smell his victory – and it smells fantastic, a lot like Derek’s aftershave, actually – when the doorbell rings.

“I hate my life!” he complains as he slides off of Derek’s lap and heads for the door.

“Be a gracious host!” Stiles’ father calls from his bedroom, where he’s been going over files for the past however long since he came home from work early.

The next hour is a flurry of activity, as if Stiles had expected any less. Scott is the first to arrive with an enthusiastic hug and an even more enthusiastic grimace when he smells the lingering arousal on Stiles’ skin. From there, people arrive in drones. There’s probably forty or fifty in total, and all of his close friends make it except the ones that he plans to visit in his sleep. It’s the best he could have asked for.

(Especially since Erica finally gets to smile at him without her worry for him hanging over her shoulders. Laura is friendly and loud and she doesn't have to talk him down from panic attacks anymore. Boyd is just Boyd, but even Stiles has noticed he smiles a little more now.) 

No, it’s not perfect. He’s still a little uncomfortable in huge crowds and standing there in just a t-shirt is weird after being so used to wearing three layers most of the time. Really, though, he’d started getting too hot, which had made Lydia ecstatic. The memory of being cold all the time (and tired and weak and small) is still vivid, but his arms have a little more definition and there’s color in his cheeks.

The fact is that things have improved a lot. He has episodes sometimes – Derek had to visit New York for a week at one point and not only had Stiles spent the entire time desperately clinging to their anchor-bond as an alternative to Derek’s actual presence, but he’d actually seen Ana for the first time in quite a while. Just her, thank god, and she’d gone back to the sweet, supportive, only mildly manipulative Ana that he’d met that day in the coffee shop. Still, it had been enough. It was a very real reminder that he’s not entirely recovered yet.

He’s startled from his thoughts by a slap on the back. Danny’s grinning widely, and he looks as free and unburdened as Stiles wishes he could be. “Happy end of junior year, man,” Danny says, dimpling at him, and Stiles can’t help but smile back.

“Did I do the whole party thing right?” he asked, laughing when Danny snickered. “I mean, Lydia’s the one who usually does this. She warned me if it sucks, she’ll do something drastic, whatever that means.”

“I don’t know, but I think it’s going okay,” Danny assures him, patting him on the shoulder. “Just wanting to say hi to the host. I’m going to find my werewolf before he causes trouble.”

“You do that,” Stiles chuckles, and Danny dimples at him one more time before disappearing. Most of the guests – about half his class – are outside, but there’s enough inside that it doesn’t take long until Stiles can’t pick out Danny’s head anymore. He does, however, notice when Allison (dragging a smiling Isaac behind her, who looks happier than he has been in months. Stiles figures that Allison and Scott planned an orgy or something, because Isaac has _never_ been that happy to see him) emerges with a wide smile.

“Great party, Stiles,” she chirps and lets go of Isaac’s hand to hug him. It feels good, to be able to hug her without it being a brittle, awkward thing. It also helps that he’s not about her size anymore, but neither of them say it. Since he found his anchor, Allison and Scott have felt a lot more balanced emotionally as well. It's worked out for all of them. “Even Lydia said it wasn’t bad. That’s practically a ringing endorsement.”

“I’m so relieved,” he jokes (but really he kind of is). “Your tricycle is missing a wheel though – where’s Scott?”

“I have no idea, since you invited all of Beacon High,” Isaac snorts, but it’s amiable teasing at worst and Stiles isn’t bothered by it.

“I’m a popular guy!” he says with a shrug, turning. “I’m gonna go say hi to Lydia, wherever she is, okay? I’ll probably find you later and we can chill.”

“Have fun!” Allison calls after him happily.

“My line!” he answers, grinning, and starts to make his way toward the kitchen.

“Oh, Stiles!” he hears, and turns to smile at Katie, who is waving and coming over to join him.

“Hey,” he greets her. “How are you? I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever!” She’s moved schools since the incident in the library, but he’d gone out of his way to find her on Facebook and send her an invite. She’d gone out of her way to express her concern for him and he really liked her, even if he couldn’t return the crush he suspected she had on him.

“I’ve been really good,” she answers with a huge grin, tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear, and surprisingly, she’s less surprised than he is when there is suddenly a heavy arm around his waist. “I think your boyfriend found you, Stiles,” she giggles when he jumps.

“You’re like a cat,” he accuses, but he always has a hello kiss for Derek, especially since he’d thought that Derek would just hide upstairs like the socially awkward turtle he is.

“Wolf,” he disagrees, and flashes a charming smile at Katie. Stiles wants to groan, but at least he’s being friendly. “Hi, I’m Derek. I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Probably not,” she agrees with a shrug. She doesn’t look intimidated by him in the least, and Stiles’ has a newfound respect for her. “I’m Katie. I used to go to school with Stiles.”

Derek opens his mouth to say something, but then he looks up and huffs when he sees Scott halfway across the house, waving at him and presumably saying his name. “I’ll find you in a bit,” Derek murmurs, leaning down to give him another kiss. He pushes through the teenagers to go figure out what Scott wants, and Katie laughs at his departure.

“He’s a wee bit possessive, don’t you think?” But it’s not unfriendly, which is odd considering that she's talking about the guy dating the boy she has a crush on. Clearly, his thoughts must show on his face, because she rolls her eyes. “Is this about me not being subtle about liking you?” He nods dumbly and she snickers a bit. It’s weird how she doesn’t seem condescending or teasing at all, even though she’s essentially laughing at him. “I’m just really glad you’re happy,” she assures him, and he believes her. “You’re looking a lot better, you know. And you look even better when he’s around.”

“It doesn’t bother you at all?” he asks curiously. “Because when I was still in love with Lydia, watching her with Jackson made my blood boil like whoa.”

“Well, for one,” she starts with a raised eyebrow that Derek would approve of. “I haven't had a really ridiculous crush on you for seven or so years.” She laughs when he gives her a ‘fair enough’ shrug. “I did – do? – like you. But it’s mostly because I think you’re funny and cute. I’m just glad that you’re doing better, honestly.”

“You are really nice,” he observes. “Why did you like me again? Because it’s not making sense to me. I am an ass and you are so nice. How did that happen?” She pats him on the shoulder with a grin and chats with him for a little bit longer before seeing a friend she wants to talk to. She gives him a friendly wave goodbye and he makes his way over to his kitchen, where Lydia, Derek, and Scott’s little triad are situated.

“How much of that were you listening in on?” he asks Derek curiously, wrapping his arms around Derek’s waist, smiling when Derek’s arms surround him in return.

“All of it,” Derek replies without a hint of shame. He’s smirking a bit, but he kisses Stiles and of course Stiles forgives him. “She’s a nice girl,” he tells Stiles calmly, and Stiles just smiles. Derek’s jealousy was adorable, but his security in their relationship is cuter.

He relaxes into Derek’s arms, getting comfortable when Lydia starts a long lecture about his successes (and failures) in party throwing.

It's a little weird, even to him considering everything he's gone through this year, but he's content.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it! It's over! Experimentation complete!  
> But really, thank you guys so so much for all your comments and kudos. They were the best motivation and I appreciate it. Feel free to send me a hello on tumblr (tisthewoman.tumblr.com) or just wait for a new fic out of me; I'll be sure to start a new one soonish. I just can't say whether I want to finish my Merlin fic first or not. Anyway, just many thanks and I hope you liked it. :)  
> *hugs*


	44. Chapter 44

Hi everybody! KKA here.

 

So, I'm really sorry for any bother, but I noticed that someone reposed this story on Wattpad. I'm really, really not okay with this, and I was very upset that this happened. I'm fine with translations so long as I'm given credit as the original author, but reposting my stories is NOT OKAY. The issue is taken care of now but it still happened. Please don't repost anything I've written, and if you see that someone else has, please ask them to take it down and let me know that it's happened.

Also, if you have the old link to the repost, the issue was with a co-admin who no longer runs the account so please don't bother the wattpad user running it now. They were very helpful and removed the reupload for me.

Thanks, guys. Your support means the world to me. 


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